If your company already runs on Microsoft 365, you may already be paying for Microsoft Teams, so the real question is whether Zoom adds enough for the meetings you run. Teams usually makes more sense for internal collaboration inside Microsoft 365, while Zoom is easier to justify for external-facing meetings and dedicated webinar workflows.
Both free plans host up to 100 people. Free group calls end at 60 minutes on Teams (see the Microsoft Teams time limit) and at 40 minutes on Zoom (see the Zoom time limit). On paid plans, Teams starts at $4 per user a month with Teams Essentials, while Zoom Pro costs $14.16, both billed annually.
Which Is Better, Zoom or Microsoft Teams?
Neither is better for everyone. The right choice depends on who you meet with and which tools your company already pays for:
| If this sounds like your team | Choose | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Your Microsoft 365 Business plan already includes Teams | Microsoft Teams | You already have chat, meetings and your Word, Excel and PowerPoint files in the same place |
| Most calls are with clients, candidates or partners | Zoom | Guests join from a link in the app or the browser, and hosts get detailed controls for each meeting |
| You run webinars or public events | Zoom | Zoom Webinars adds registration, Q&A, polls and event reports |
| You want the cheapest paid plan for meetings only | Microsoft Teams | Teams Essentials costs $4 per user a month, billed annually |
| Your team works in shared documents and channels all day | Microsoft Teams | Chat, files and meetings stay in the same channel before and after the call |
| Your team already works in Gmail and Google Calendar | Google Meet | Meet comes with Google Workspace and runs in the browser, so a third option may fit better than either |
| Different departments need different workflows | Both | Teams can cover internal collaboration, and Zoom can be added where external meetings or webinars justify it |
Table last updated: September 28, 2026.
If none of these settles it, the comparison below goes through the differences one by one.
Zoom vs Microsoft Teams at a Glance
| Feature | Microsoft Teams | Zoom |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Internal teamwork in Microsoft 365: chat, channels and shared files | External meetings, webinars and large events |
| Free plan: call length | Group calls up to 60 minutes; 1:1 calls up to 30 hours | 40 minutes, 1:1 calls included |
| Free plan: participants | 100 | 100 |
| Paid plans: participants | 300 on Teams Essentials and Microsoft 365 Business plans; 1,000 on Enterprise plans | 100 Pro; 300 Business; 500+ Enterprise; more with the Large Meeting add-on |
| Paid plans: call length | Up to 30 hours | Up to 30 hours |
| Starting paid price | $4/user/month (Teams Essentials, billed annually) | $14.16/user/month (Pro, billed annually) |
| Built-in AI | Intelligent recap with Teams Premium or Microsoft 365 Copilot; interactive Copilot requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot license | Included in paid plans; summaries for 3 hosted meetings a month on the free plan |
| Recording | Included in Teams Essentials and Microsoft 365 Business plans that include Teams | Free plan: to your computer; paid plans: to the cloud too |
| Cloud storage | 10 GB per user on Teams Essentials; 1 TB per user on Microsoft 365 Business plans | 10 GB per license on Pro and Business; unlimited on Enterprise |
| Webinars | Included from Microsoft 365 Business Standard plans that include Teams | Zoom Webinars, sold separately from $66.67/month billed annually |
| Apps and integrations | Microsoft 365 apps plus third-party apps from the Teams store | Nearly 3,000 apps in the Zoom App Marketplace |
Table last updated: September 28, 2026.
Is Microsoft Teams the Same as Zoom?
No. Microsoft Teams is Microsoft's collaboration app, and Zoom is a separate product from Zoom Communications. Both let you run video meetings, share your screen, chat and record calls, so on a normal call they feel similar.
The main difference is in the features around the meeting. Teams is built around chat and channels, and it's available with Microsoft 365 plans that include Teams or as a standalone plan, so meetings can sit next to your email, calendar and files. Zoom started as a meeting app. Zoom Workplace now adds Team Chat, Docs and a whiteboard, but meetings are still its core product.
Zoom vs Microsoft Teams Pricing
Both platforms have a free plan. Paid Teams usually comes as part of a Microsoft 365 plan, which also includes Outlook, OneDrive and the Office apps. On the Zoom side, you pay for a Zoom Workplace license, and the AI features come with it.
All prices below are standard US list prices per user per month, billed annually unless noted.
| Plan | Microsoft Teams | Zoom Workplace |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Teams Free: 100 participants, 60-minute group calls | Basic: 100 participants, 40-minute calls |
| Meetings-focused paid plan | Teams Essentials: $4 | Pro: $14.16 ($16.99 billed monthly) |
| Business plans | Microsoft 365 Business Basic: $7; Business Standard: $14; Business Premium: $22 (versions that include Teams) | Business: $18.33 ($21.99 billed monthly) |
| AI add-ons | Microsoft 365 Copilot Business: $18 (promotional price through December 2026, then $21); Teams Premium: $10 | AI included in paid plans; ZoomMate sold separately from $16.67 |
| Enterprise | Microsoft 365 E3 and E5, or a Teams Enterprise license | Enterprise: contact sales |
Table last updated: September 28, 2026.
Microsoft also sells each Business plan in a version without Teams, at a lower price. If your company already pays for a Microsoft 365 Business plan that includes Teams, there is no separate Teams license to add. Adding Zoom doesn't mean paying for every employee, because Zoom charges per host license and guests join for free. If only a few people host client calls or webinars, you can buy Zoom Pro for those people, at $14.16 per host a month billed annually.
For the full plan details, see our guide to Microsoft Teams pricing, or our breakdown of Zoom pricing plans.
How Do Meetings Split Across Platforms in MeetGeek Data?
MeetGeek records meetings on Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet, so its data shows how recorded meetings split across the three platforms. In the first half of 2026, Microsoft Teams accounted for 38.6% of the meetings MeetGeek recorded and Zoom 18.4%, with Google Meet at 43.0%.
The split changes a lot from one country to the next. MeetGeek's US data is almost a three-way tie, with Zoom at 33.4%, Microsoft Teams at 32.5% and Google Meet at 34.2%. In several European markets, Microsoft Teams accounted for 64.7% of meetings recorded by MeetGeek in the Netherlands, 61.3% in France and 57.3% in the United Kingdom. Pick a market below to compare Teams and Zoom.
MeetGeek data
Microsoft Teams vs Zoom: share of meetings recorded by MeetGeek, by market
Share of meetings recorded by MeetGeek on each platform in the first half of 2026. Not a measure of market share or user share.
If Google Meet is also on your shortlist, see our Google Meet vs Zoom comparison.
How Do Zoom and Microsoft Teams Compare?
Here's how the two compare, feature by feature.
1. Free Plans, Time Limits and Meeting Size
On the free plans, Teams and Zoom both cap meetings at 100 people. What changes is the time you get:
- Microsoft Teams (free): group calls end at 60 minutes, and 1:1 calls can run for up to 30 hours;
- Zoom (free): every meeting ends at 40 minutes, 1:1 calls included;
- Paid plans: meetings can last up to 30 hours on both.
Whether that cap gets in your way comes down to the length of your calls. MeetGeek data from the first half of 2026 shows that 24.7% of Zoom meetings and 23.7% of Microsoft Teams meetings ran for an hour or longer. Around a quarter of meetings on either platform therefore lasted at least an hour, so free-plan time limits can become relevant quickly, especially Zoom's shorter 40-minute cap.
On paid plans, Teams Essentials and the Microsoft 365 Business plans host up to 300 people, and Enterprise plans up to 1,000, with view-only attendance for larger audiences. Zoom Pro hosts 100 people, Business 300 and Enterprise 500 or more, and the Large Meeting add-on raises the limit on any of them.
2. AI Features
Zoom includes its meeting AI in paid Workplace plans. On Pro, you get unlimited meeting summaries and can ask questions during the call, such as what was decided before you joined. Free users can get AI summaries of 3 meetings they host each month. ZoomMate, Zoom's separate AI assistant, costs from $16.67 per user a month on an annual plan.
In Teams, Teams Premium and Microsoft 365 Copilot both unlock intelligent recap, with AI-generated notes, tasks and meeting insights after the call. Microsoft 365 Copilot also adds interactive Copilot, so licensed users can ask questions and generate custom summaries during or after the meeting. Teams Premium costs $10 per user a month, Copilot Business costs $18 per user a month on a promotional price through December 2026, and Microsoft also sells Business Standard with Copilot included for $23.50. Our guide to Copilot in Teams meetings shows how to switch it on.
Zoom's AI comes with every paid Zoom plan, while Teams needs Teams Premium or a Microsoft 365 Copilot license for AI recaps, and Copilot for interactive questions. If your company already pays for Copilot, it also gives you AI in Outlook, Word and Excel, not only in Teams meetings.
3. Scheduling, Host Controls and Roles
You can schedule a Zoom meeting from the Zoom app, the web portal, Google Calendar or Outlook, and set a passcode, a waiting room and audio and video defaults before anyone joins. People you invite usually don't need a Zoom account and can join in a browser.
Zoom splits control between three roles:
- Host: full control of the meeting;
- Co-host: helps manage participants, but can't start the meeting or assign other co-hosts;
- Alternative host: can start the meeting if the host can't make it (see how to make someone a co-host on Zoom).
In Teams, you schedule meetings from the Teams calendar or from Outlook, and you can also hold a meeting inside a channel, so the recording and the chat stay with that team's files. Our guide shows how to set up a Teams meeting on desktop, mobile and Outlook.
Teams splits control between four roles:
- Organizer: full control of the meeting and its options;
- Co-organizer: up to 10 per meeting, with most of the organizer's controls;
- Presenter: can share content and help run Q&A;
- Attendee: can watch, chat and react.
Zoom works well for calls with external guests, who can join from the app or the browser. Teams' roles suit larger internal meetings where several people share responsibility for running the meeting.
4. Chat and Collaboration
Teams is built around chat. You can message one person, a group or a whole channel, reply in threads, and keep the conversation going before, during and after a meeting. You can also open Word, Excel and PowerPoint files inside Teams and edit them with others during the call, and Microsoft Whiteboard is built into meetings.
Zoom's in-meeting chat supports messages to the whole call and private messages to one person, and the host can switch private messages off. Outside meetings, Zoom Workplace includes Team Chat, Docs and Zoom Whiteboard. Basic and Pro include 3 editable whiteboards; Business and Enterprise include unlimited editable boards.
If your team works in shared documents and channels every day, Teams keeps more of that work in one place. If you mainly need meetings with some chat around them, Zoom covers that.
5. Video Quality
Both platforms offer HD video, and on both, call quality depends heavily on your internet connection and camera.
On Zoom, full HD (1080p) is available on Business, Education and Enterprise accounts once Zoom Support turns it on. On Teams, the resolution also depends on the device you join from. Both apps offer background blur, virtual backgrounds and appearance filters.
If you need full HD on Zoom, check that your plan includes it before you rely on it for demos or recorded sessions.
6. Recording and Cloud Storage
Teams recordings are saved to the organizer's OneDrive, or to SharePoint for channel meetings, and a link appears in the meeting chat. Microsoft 365 Business plans include 1 TB of OneDrive storage per user, and Teams Essentials includes 10 GB. On Teams Free, only participants with a Microsoft 365 Personal, Family or Premium subscription can record, and the recording stays in the chat for 30 days. Our guide shows how to record a Teams meeting as a host, guest or free user, and you can check where Teams recordings are stored if you can't find one.
On Zoom's free plan, recordings are saved locally on your computer. Paid plans add cloud recording, with 10 GB per license on Pro and Business and unlimited storage on Enterprise. If you're not sure where a file went, see where Zoom recordings go.
Microsoft 365 Business plans include 1 TB of general OneDrive storage per user, while Zoom Pro and Business include 10 GB of cloud-recording storage per licensed user, pooled across the account.
7. Webinars and Large Events
Zoom sells its event tools as separate products. Zoom Webinars costs from $66.67 a month on an annual plan, for up to 300 attendees, with registration pages, polls, moderated Q&A and post-event reports. For conferences with several sessions, Zoom sells Zoom Events.
Teams includes webinars from Microsoft 365 Business Standard, with registration and up to 1,000 attendees. For larger audiences, Teams town halls on Enterprise licenses reach up to 10,000 view-only attendees, and up to 100,000 with an add-on, according to Microsoft's Teams events documentation. For meeting rooms, both sell room systems: Zoom Rooms and Microsoft Teams Rooms, which run on certified hardware.
For public webinars and marketing events, Zoom has more purpose-built tools. For internal events and town halls, Teams supports them without a separate product if you're on the right Microsoft 365 plan.
8. Integrations
Teams works most closely with Microsoft 365: Outlook, OneDrive, SharePoint, Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The Teams store adds third-party apps such as Adobe Creative Cloud, GitHub and Zapier.
The Zoom App Marketplace lists nearly 3,000 apps, including Salesforce, HubSpot, Slack, Asana and Dropbox, and some of them need their own subscription.
Teams is the easier fit if most of your work is in Microsoft 365. Zoom offers the broader app marketplace if you use tools from many vendors.
9. Security
Both platforms encrypt meetings in transit and give hosts controls such as lobbies or waiting rooms and limits on who can share their screen.
Zoom offers end-to-end encryption on free and paid accounts, for people who join from the Zoom desktop or mobile app. Turning it on switches off cloud recording, live transcription and Zoom's AI features, among others.
Teams offers end-to-end encryption for 1:1 calls with no extra license. For meetings, the organizer needs Teams Premium, the meeting can have up to 200 participants, and recording, transcription and Copilot are switched off. Teams also comes with Microsoft 365's admin and compliance tools, which can be useful for IT teams in regulated industries.
What Users Say About Zoom and Microsoft Teams
On G2, Zoom Workplace holds a 4.5 out of 5 rating from more than 56,000 reviews, and Microsoft Teams holds 4.4 out of 5 from more than 19,000 (checked on September 28, 2026).
A student at a mid-sized company who rated Teams 5 out of 5 in June 2025 praised being able to edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint files inside Teams, but also noted that "Microsoft Teams can be slow to load or laggy, especially when switching between channels or files on older machines."
A test engineer at a small business who rated Zoom Workplace 4.5 out of 5 in June 2025 said its video meetings are smooth and reliable and its AI summaries save time. The same reviewer wrote that Zoom's chat, docs and whiteboards "often lack the depth or flexibility of specialized alternatives."
Can You Use Zoom and Microsoft Teams Together?
Yes. One practical setup is Teams for internal meetings and chat, and Zoom for sales calls, customer meetings or webinars. Guests don't need a paid account on either platform to join.
The downside is that your meeting records end up in two places. Teams recordings and Copilot recaps live in Microsoft 365, and Zoom recordings and summaries live in your Zoom account, so finding what a customer said last month means knowing which platform the call ran on.
MeetGeek works across both, and across Google Meet too. It joins your calls as a bot or records them without one through its desktop app, then turns each meeting into a transcript and AI notes in 100+ languages, whatever platform it ran on. Every meeting goes into one searchable library, and Meeting Skills can draft the follow-up email, update the deal in your CRM or create tasks from what was agreed. MeetGeek connects to more than 10,000 apps through native integrations, Zapier, Make and n8n.
Sophie Cotton, Chief Customer Officer at Newstel, describes it like this: "MeetGeek does the heavy lifting. The summaries are accurate, and leaders can adjust them if needed, but the platform saves them a massive amount of time." (Newstel case study)
MeetGeek keeps your Zoom and Teams meetings in one library
Notes, follow-ups and CRM updates work the same on both platforms, with or without a bot. Connects to 10,000+ apps. Free to start.
So, Zoom or Microsoft Teams?
Choose Microsoft Teams if your Microsoft 365 plan already includes Teams and most of your meetings are internal. Choose Zoom if you meet mostly with people outside the company or run webinars. If you need both, you can limit Zoom licenses to the people who host external calls or webinars.
Key takeaways:
- Free plans: both host 100 people; group calls end at 60 minutes on Teams and 40 minutes on Zoom.
- Price: Teams Essentials costs $4 per user a month and Zoom Pro $14.16, both billed annually, and Microsoft 365 Business Basic with Teams starts at $7.
- AI: Zoom includes meeting AI in paid plans; Teams needs Teams Premium or Microsoft 365 Copilot for intelligent recap, and Copilot for interactive questions.
- Events: Zoom sells dedicated webinar tools; Teams includes webinars from Business Standard and large town halls on Enterprise licenses.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Is Microsoft Teams Better Than Zoom?
It depends on how you work. Teams usually makes more sense if your company already uses Microsoft 365 and most of your meetings are internal, because chat, files and meetings sit in one app. Zoom usually makes more sense for meetings with outside guests and for webinars.
2. Is Zoom Part of Microsoft?
No. Zoom is made by Zoom Communications, a separate company. Microsoft's own video meeting app is Microsoft Teams.
3. What Is the Microsoft Equivalent of Zoom?
Microsoft Teams. It covers the same core video-meeting functions, including video calls, screen sharing and recording, and adds persistent chat, channels and file sharing. It's included in the Microsoft 365 Business plans that come with Teams, and Microsoft also sells it on its own as Teams Essentials, for $4 per user a month, billed annually.
4. Which Is Cheaper, Zoom or Microsoft Teams?
Microsoft Teams. Teams Essentials costs $4 per user a month and Zoom Pro $14.16, both billed annually. If your company already pays for a Microsoft 365 Business plan that includes Teams, Teams costs nothing extra.
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