Free web conferencing software sometimes lacks the features that paid programs offer, or they provide just limited trial periods. These limitations may still be worth it, depending on your circumstances. To save you the legwork of finding the best free video conferencing solution, here’s a list of five awesome tools. They also offer an unlimited number of conference calls per month and do not require a PIN number to initiate or join a call. The drawback with the free version of Dialpad is that calls are limited to 45 minutes, and there’s no support for international calls. AnyMeeting offers two pricing tiers: Lite and Pro. Both plans allow you to host meetings of up to 200 people. There’s also unlimited meetings, screen sharing, VoIP/PSTN audio calls, and in-meeting chats. The Pro version delivers a bit more functionality, including the ability to record meetings, upload presentations, take notes, and give attendees the ability to directly control your mouse and keyboard for more advanced collaboration tools. Attendees do not need to download an app or plug-in to join a meeting, but hosts will control the meeting through software. Hosts can record meetings, switch between presenters, and pause screen sharing (great when you need to open a document in a private folder, for example). You can even control the speed and color quality of screen sharing to save bandwidth. The downside is the number of participants a call can fit, which is just 25 for all of the pricing tiers. That’s less than most other services on this list. The downside is that you can only host up to 10 participants at a time. That said, Skype is great for users who make a lot of calls to international or landline numbers. International plans allow you to make calls around the world for a monthly fee. (In the U.S. it’s $2.99/month for unlimited calls.) There’s also a pay-as-you-go option through Skype Credit and Skype to Go. The one pitfall with Zoom is that conferences with multiple participants are limited to 40 minutes. Paid services allow unlimited call durations, hundreds of meeting participants, cloud storage space for recording calls, admin dashboards, custom emails and URLs, and company branding.
