Loom vs Zoom – What’s The Difference?

Video communication has become the norm in today’s modern world.

With many people collaborating on projects, it’s just right to keep in touch wherever they are. And this can only be achieved through virtual communication.

To stay engaged and achieve an equilibrium, teams use a combination of tools for remote meetings and other resources like recorded videos.

These tools help boost productivity, most especially when handling projects as a team.

This article is about Loom vs Zoom, the two major video communication tools that improve communication among teams.

Although they work towards the same goal, both Loom and Zoom have their differences.

Let’s delve deeper into the two platforms to understand them better and how different they are.

Stay with me.

What is Loom?

Loom is a screen recording tool you can use to create and share media. It has a free Google Chrome extension.

With Loom, you get to create your own videos using a camera, audio, and screen view. It places your video in a little inset to allow you to be seen as you describe what is showing on your screen.

It’s simple and fast to record personal video emails with Loom and send them directly instead of typing them. By recording videos, it will be easy to share them on other networks, including Twitter, Facebook, and more.

Loom offers an immersive experience for both senders and viewers. It’s much more convenient to use since you get to talk faster and make more videos than if you had to type multiple messages to your clients.

All you have to do is look straight at the screen and capture your voice message and face, which takes a very short time.

Loom videos are the best alternative to physical meetings that take longer than usual. You can use them to build lasting relationships with customers across the globe. And you get to keep your video recordings for later referencing and use.

The best part is that you don’t get to spend much time composing and sending emails or hiring designers and marketers to work on your projects.

What is Zoom?

Zoom makes things pretty simple for you. You can record yourself and your screen, use the tool for screen share demo videos, webinars, Facebook Live, and even group coaching virtual calls.

The tool offers a whole load of video possibilities. Besides coaching calls, you get to create video courses and tutorials as well as the standard on-camera recording.

And with the standard version, you have additional features and functionalities like going direct to Facebook Live.

Overall, Zoom unifies online meetings, cloud video conferencing, group messaging, and a solution to software-based conferencing rooms.

It upgrades features regularly to allow you to connect with global stakeholders seamlessly. This helps to expand your reach and boost your profitability.

Services

Loom

Loom offers multiple services, including;

Recording Video Communication

Loom allows you to record video meetings and store them for future reference. The tool saves you the hassle of multitasking and taking notes on the spot. You’ll have a personal video library that you can go back to and share or reference your recorded videos.

Loom recordings are readily available for sharing. You can use a link to share with others who didn’t attend the meeting. The application plays recordings at fast speeds.

Send Meeting Context Beforehand

When collaborating in real-time, you can easily incorporate Loom into your workflow. Send your updates and context ahead of time to all the participants. By the time of the meeting, they’ll have their questions or comments ready.

For example, you can send recordings of product demo videos to your prospects to help them absorb information on time.

Replace Briefings and Status Updates

Loom allows you to replace the daily status briefings with screen recordings so people can watch them at their convenience.

Collaborate on different time zones and schedules

Getting more busy people in one video conference call can be a daunting task, even when they’re within the same time zone. But with Loom, you are able to share a quick message to participants, which they can watch at their convenience.

Later they’ll contact you with the questions and comments they have. This approach makes them feel included even if they didn’t make it to that particular meeting.

Saving Time for Other Important Work

Leveraging Loom each day helps you accomplish other pending tasks faster. Instead of following meeting schedules, you can just make little time to watch Loom videos and go through the details at your own pace.

Zoom

Zoom also has a pack of services including;

Video Conferencing

With Zoom video conferencing, you can carry out audio and video communication without necessarily including computer presentations.

You’ll need a stable internet connection, integrated meeting system, or third-party video conferencing system. A Zoom virtual meeting room can have 300 connected parties.

Web Conferencing

Web conferencing with Zoom involves remote file presentation, real collaborative work on open files, handshake to annotate or request remote takeover, live annotation, and central management of the meeting by the moderator.

Video Streaming and Recording

In Zoom, you can record webinars, video conferences, and meetings on your workstation or in the cloud. There’s an option to broadcast your virtual meetings in streaming to a large audience.

The tool also allows you to train virtually, present information, or launch and train on products remotely. You can moderate the sessions during a stream to up to 300 participants.

Host Webinars

Zoom allows the broadcasting of webinars to up to 500 participants. Whether it’s a video, audio, or computer presentation, you can reach a broad audience base with your webinar.

It also offers an online survey solution to collect opinions from webinar participants. The integration of webinars into RTMP ensures you stream through YouTube Live or Facebook Live.

Audio Conferencing

With Zoom audio conferencing, you can connect with both local and international numbers for an unlimited time. The software allows you to host your audio conference with 300 participants. You can manage both incoming and outgoing calls easily without any glitches.

Chat Messaging

Zoom also offers chat messaging services for individuals or groups. It keeps the history of your chats and allows you to transfer files to those you’ll be chatting with. The tool also gives you the option of turning your chats into a none-click video call.

Top Features

Loom

Loom eliminates the need to compose messages. It captures your voice and face while you deliver the right message to your audience.

The idea of Loom is to facilitate quick communication. After recording your video message, you can share it instantly across networks via an automated link. Before distributing your videos, you get to edit or trim them to boost interactivity.

Loom gives you stunning emojis that allow viewers to express themselves. They can comment or react to your videos too. The best part is that you have total control over who views your videos and who doesn’t.

These are Loom’s other key features.

• An intuitive dashboard
• Taking and editing screenshots
• Screen recording
• Video capturing and effects
• Webcam, audio, and sound recording
• Zooming in and out
• Area selection Zoomer and area auto-detection
• Active desktop
• Drawing
• Pause/resume screen recording

Zoom

Zoom stands out as a simple-to-use tool, allowing users to conduct their online meetings, webinars, and conferences with professionalism.

The group video calling has unique options of connecting live on Facebook or YouTube with screen sharing. It has a great camera that enhances online meetings and online marketing ventures.

With excellent conference rooms, you can collaborate anytime through video communications. And with cross-platform messaging and unified calls, there’s nothing you can’t accomplish for your business. Zoom features are frequently updated to ensure seamless experiences for users.

Zoom’s key features include:

• A chat function
• Virtual backgrounds
• Recording of meetings
• Unlimited chat time
• Screen sharing
• Audio and camera control
• Muting calls
• Easy invite URL codes
• Portrait and gallery views

Scalability and Performance

Loom

Loom offers unlimited storage and video recording time on its basic plan. Its pro version has enticing perks, like unlimited video sharing.

Teachers and students enjoy its outstanding performance from the basic plan and other plans too. It is also convenient for large businesses with teams that need to collaborate and share information.

If you are a Loom Starter user, you are entitled to a five-minute recording time limit. An education user has a 45-minute video recording limit. Enterprise and business subscribers get to enjoy up to 6 hours of recording a single video.

For storage, Loom offers unlimited storage for education, business, and enterprise users. Education users get up to 45 minute-long recorded videos.

On the other hand, starters have to be content with screenshots or a 25 video recording limit. The video length will be five minutes.

Business and enterprise users can record videos for up to six hours.

Zoom

Zoom has improved its scalability for Pro users by giving users a high capacity of hosting participants. Subscribers now engage 300 participants instead of 100. This is three times more scalability for the price of one.

Its data centers and video meetings provide global connectivity and an immersive user experience. Features such as caller ID control, scheduled call routing, and voicemail transcription enhance performance.

Among all the other video conferencing platforms, Zoom has the highest meeting capacities. You can host 500 people on one Zoom video call without any complications. Both video and audio will be clear and the screen sharing feature will work excellently at all times.

This makes Zoom the best video conferencing app for large businesses. The best part about all this is that you can continue recording your meeting to the end, even after your storage limit is reached.

For storage capacity, the pro, business, and Zoom Room plan offer 1GB of storage per licensed user. The education plan receives 0.5GB of storage for every licensed user.

Ease of Use

Loom

Loom has a desktop app and a web app. Both these apps are straightforward to navigate and use. It offers all the tools needed for video recording and editing. You can quickly share recorded videos across any network.

Loom offers unmatched experience and uninterrupted performance. To record a video using the Loom desktop app, all you have to do is click the app and open the recorder.

After signing in, you’ll create your loom account, choose what you want to capture, select audio and camera and start recording. Your video will be ready for distribution after some editing.

Zoom

Zoom has a large client base, but it’s easy to implement and use. After downloading the app, you’ll be provided with easy-to-follow usage guidelines from the dashboard. A few clicks will get you started in no time.

If you’re a beginner, you just go to Zoom’s sign-up page and activate your account by creating an account name and password. Once it’s active, you can invite your friends and colleagues or decide to join a meeting.

Joining a Zoom meeting is pretty easy. On Chrome, click Join Zoom and enter the meeting ID given by the meeting host. Click join and you are in.

Audio and Video Quality

Loom

Loom comes with a default resolution based on the device you set it up with and your internet speed. On average your videos will have a 720 pixel quality on a Chrome extension. The quality will improve with the pricing plan you choose and your requirements.

Zoom

Zoom produces HD quality videos with excellent, no noise audio clarity. The chat feature further enhances the quality of communication. The high-resolution, 720p camera supports 20 frames per second but ensures seamless communication.

Security

Loom

With Loom, each video you record has a unique ID that cannot be decoded, which means that only those people you share your videos with can watch them. Loom ensures that all videos are uploaded securely on an SSL encrypted WebSocket.

Zoom

Zoom provides end-to-end encryptions, screen share watermarks, and audio signatures to secure your meetings. It also stores all your video recordings in the cloud for added security.

OS Compatibility

Loom

Loom is free software available for various platforms, including Windows, Mac, and iOS. There are different versions such as Loom desktop, Loom for Mac, and Loom for Chrome. Besides, Loom has iOS and Android apps.

Zoom

The Zoom software supports Mac, Linus, and Windows. It also has mobile apps for Android and iOS platforms.

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Pricing Plans

Loom

Loom has three pricing plans; the Starter Plan, Business Plan, and Enterprise Plan. The starter plan is free and comes with perks like quick video messages, 50 creators Lite, 25 videos per person, and five minutes per video. Features include team workspace, screen recording and cam bubble, team workspace, viewer insights, and instant editing.

The business plan costs $8 with perks including everything in starter plan, advanced recording and analytics, unlimited creators, videos and recording length, 50 creators Lite, custom branding, transcriptions and closed captions, filler word removal, and engagement insights.

Its enterprise plan is quote-based and consists of perks including what is in the business plan, advanced admin and security, unlimited creators, videos, and recording length, SSO/SAML, advanced content privacy, integration of Salesforce beta, and SCIM.

Zoom

Zoom has four pricing plans; a Basic Plan, Pro Plan, Business Plan, and Enterprise Plan. Zoom basic plan is free and hosts up to 100 participants. You get to enjoy unlimited group meetings for 40 minutes, unlimited one-on-one meetings at a 30-hour time limit for each meeting, and a private and group chat.

Zoom Pro is available at $14.99/month/license. It gives you all the Basic plan benefits, 100 participants hosting, 30-hour group meetings, social media streaming, 1 GB per license cloud recording, and a Large Meetings add-on that allows you up to 1,000 participants.

Zoom Business plan costs $19.99/month/license and comes with all the benefits of Pro plan with 300 participants hosting. Single sign-on, managed domains, up to 99 licenses, company branding, recording transcripts, and the Large Meetings add-on that lets you host up to 1,000 participants.

The Zoom Enterprise plan comes at $19.99/month/license. You get to enjoy the benefits of the Business plan, host 500 participants, record transcripts, and unlimited cloud storage.

Support

Loom

Their customer support is relatively average. You can reach them through the contact form or scroll through the how-to guides at their help center to find a solution to your issue.

Zoom

Zoom offers excellent customer support options. With a Zoom community of more than 70K members, you can easily find the answer to any questions and concerns you may have.

It also offers plenty of resources and guides on its website. If you can’t find the answer from these two options, you can contact customer support.

The reviews are based on customer support, ease of use, features, and each tool’s value for money.

Pros & Cons

Loom

Pros

• Loom has an automatic and fast capture process for audio, video, and the whole window.
• The entire system can be managed via links without the need to download files.
• Share your video recordings through the system or in the cloud.
• Record unlimited videos with easy access.
• Loom screen recorders are automatically saved to the user’s Loom account.
• Online videos are organized in folders, allowing you to move them freely between folders.

Cons

• The interface isn’t intuitive enough.
• It’s difficult to separate audio from video.
• Long videos can be a challenge.
• It has audio quality issues sometimes.

Zoom

Pros 

• Zoom is scalable and allows you to modify your communication method.
• Offers excellent audio and video quality on all systems.
• Has a calendar that helps you schedule your meetings better.
• You can conference with a larger group without compromising video quality.
• It enables screen sharing.
• Zoom integrates with third-party software depending on the organization. For example, it integrates with Simple Clinic and Acuity to enhance operations for medical practitioners.
• It comes with a chat feature.

Cons

• The dashboard is not so user-friendly
• Some connectivity issues.
• Limited features on the free accounts.
• It’s challenging to know when the connection is lost during the meeting.
• Many complain about Zoom having too many alerts.

Loom vs Zoom: FAQs

Can I Use Loom and Zoom Together?

Yes, you can. Use Loom to record a Zoom meeting. The best part is that Loom lets you record any activity on your screen, even if it occurs outside of Chrome.

Why is Zoom Popular?

Zoom is the most popular video conferencing platform, considering that it has the highest meeting capacity compared to other platforms. The video and audio quality are excellent and screen sharing is enhanced. It is the ideal software for use in large business entities.

Why Should I Choose Loom?

Loom video messaging is very efficient. It lets you pass your message instantly via shareable videos. It takes the shortest time to record your desktop, microphone, and camera simultaneously. Your videos will be available instantly for sharing through Loom’s patented technology.

Can Two People Use Loom at the Same Time?

Although Loom lets you record the microphone, camera, and desktop simultaneously, it doesn’t have the capability to make conference calls and conduct live video sessions with many people.

How does Zoom Secure My Meetings?

Zoom has a powerful set of pre-meeting features, including Passcodes, Join by Domain, and Waiting Rooms. It also offers controls to make sure you conduct disruption-free and secure meetings. It has measures in place, and privacy and security features that ensure your data is completely safe.

Can I Host Two Concurrent Meetings on Zoom?

Yes, you can host two Zoom meetings at a go. But this can only happen if you are a licensed user of education, business, or enterprise plan.

For effective video conferencing, both meetings should be started by an alternative host. You also have the option to leave the meeting and pass on your privileges to another user.

What’s the Difference between Loom and Zoom?

While Loom is a screen recording software, Zoom is a video conferencing tool. Individuals and small teams often use Loom while Zoom mostly targets individuals, small teams, small businesses, and bigger organizations.

Zoom has more users and more plans to meet their needs, making it more scalable. Loom, on the other hand, continues to expand its scalability as the user base grows.

In terms of video and audio quality, Zoom delivers HD quality sessions without interference. On the other hand, Loom’s free plan has video quality of up to 720p, which can increase from HD to 4k when you upgrade.

The debate on Zoom vs Loom will continue as these two tools continue to improve their features and keep scaling to accommodate more users.