Zoom Alternatives

There are other options!

Being able to communicate over video is useful in many ways.

The Zoom Problem

I know a few organisations that have paid subscriptions to Zoom, and use it as their main communication tool. But it can be expensive, and one group spent hundreds of pounds on the subscription during a relatively short period.

Further, Zoom has been involved in some dodgy practices, such as sharing users’ data with other organisations, and censoring discussions of human rights abuses. It has also censored Palestinian voices. We only know a small amount of the censorship that takes place, because Zoom obviously don’t publicise it. What other monitoring, recording, reporting and silencing are they involved with?

The Good News

But there are options!

Whereby, which is Norwegian, is a popular choice for video chats. You can create a free account which gives unlimited time if it’s just two locations; if more than two locations, you can have 45 minutes for free. Update 2024-12-20: you now get 30 minutes for free, not unlimited time.

Whereby also do a couple of paid-for accounts, which have no time limits and additional options. The cheapest is $8.99 per month, which for 1 year works out at about £83 GBP.

Crucially, people can join Whereby easily without needing an account, and it works perfectly from browsers. It has chat functions and all the other standard stuff of Zoom.

Jitsi is another option. I have used it many times, and think this is still completely free. But one person needs to log in, by connecting a Facebook, Google or Github account.

See the Ethical Consumer video conference guide for some more information (though it probably needs updating).