OPINION: Zoom trumps WebEx in functionality and design
GRAPHIC: Zoom and WebEx are two main platforms used for virtual learning. While Zoom is the most popular, the Davis Joint Unified School District is currently using WebEx to hold meetings online.
By Lucas Tillman,
BlueDevilHUB.com Staff-
As schools across the nation transition to distance learning, many are using two main platforms for lessons: WebEx and Zoom.
WebEx and Zoom are video conferencing services used for anything from business meetings to friends hanging out online. Both platforms offer a large range of tools for both students and teachers including screen-sharing, a chat function and the ability to handle hundreds of participants in one call.
Currently, the Davis Joint Unified School District is using WebEx to perform online classes.
Though it is not used by the school system, Zoom does offer many more features and a user-friendly interface that is easy to navigate while WebEx’s features do not meet that standard.
For instructors, Zoom is capable of tracking who joins and who leaves the meetings, another detail that WebEx lacks. Zoom also allows a maximum participant count of 1,000 for the most expensive plan, quintupling WebEx’s limit of 200.
From personal experience, Zoom also seems to offer better video quality than WebEx does and has fewer bugs.
“Whenever I use WebEx, the videos don’t load, I can’t see the other people in my class,” senior Maya Alexander said. “I don’t have this problem on Zoom.”
Admittedly, Zoom does have some shortcomings, notably its security issues.
The most important concept that the platform initially lacked was password-protected meetings. However, in an April 12 update, passwords became the default for meetings. Hosts no longer have to worry about strangers guessing the meeting number.
Another security flaw Zoom had was that occasionally it would use servers in China to host meetings in North America. Chinese authorities could order the server engineers to hand over the meeting information. This has since been fixed, according to a blogpost by Zoom’s CEO. Many of the initial security concerns about Zoom are also quickly being fixed through weekly updates.
Overall, Zoom’s accessibility and ease-of-use gives it the edge over WebEx for both school and personal use.
