Webinar software: a comparison of the best webinar platforms

Webinars are a low-cost option for talks and seminars, and can be set up independent of time and location. To launch a webinar, all you need is a computer and webinar software. But due to the overwhelming number of providers, finding a suitable webinar platform can take up a lot of time. To make your decision easier, we’ve rounded up six popular webinar software solutions and explain what to look out for before making a decision.

If you’re just starting out with your search for the perfect webinar software, you’ll find an overwhelming assortment of webinar platforms available online. These typically differ both in price and range of functions. Before you jump at the first one, ask yourself the following questions to determine your basic requirements for a program:

• Will you be transmitting webinars live?
• How many participants do you plan on hosting?
• How long will your webinars be?
• Which functions are a requirement for you? Common examples include whiteboards, screencasts, chat functionality, or virtual backgrounds.
• Do you value branding functionalities to individually tailor your webinars?
• Will you need analysis and feedback tools?
• Will you be offering your webinars for free or is an integrated payment system a requirement for you?
• What’s your budget for webinar software?

First off, no single webinar software works for all. Every tool has its strengths and weaknesses. Finding the best webinar platform depends on your individual requirements and needs. Below, we introduce six of the most popular webinar providers and compare them.

The expansive branding functions will be of interest to companies, allowing them to integrate their logo and corporate identity as part of the webinar background. Google Analytics and other webinar and participant statistics can also be integrated to evaluate and optimize webinars. A disadvantage of ClickMeeting is that it strongly limits the storage space of recorded webinars. This means, you can only save between six and 10 hours of recorded material – depending on your pricing plan.

Thanks to its integrated payment system, you can conduct paid webinars without the requirement of additional software. “GoToStage” access lets users watch on-demand webinars at any time and share their live content. Unfortunately, live webinars are not available with GoToWebinar. But the webinar software makes up for this by providing excellent functions to simulate live events – with interactive quick-surveys, user-defined answers to questions, and automatic playbacks.

What makes Demio stand out is not only its high-definition live-streaming quality, but also its in-depth analytics, to check at which stage attendees joined or left a webinar – a flexible option designed to improve marketing efforts.

With its “Rent my Webinar” feature, you can make your webinars available to other providers, either at a cost or for free. You also have the option to publish successful webinars on your account. The only package available, however, is the Professional package, which will set you back $99 each month. In return, you’ll have access to unlimited automated webinars and all functions included.

Zoom is especially convincing because, in theory, it allows for a very large number of viewers. The corresponding add-on costs $40 per month and lets you add up to 10.000 participants. However, even the most expensive package is limited to 100 interactive participants.

This webinar provider is the right choice for you if you want to involve many participants in an interactive way. Up to 5,000 active participants can be added – five times as many as with similar webinar software tools. To keep this many participants engaged, the software lets you add up to six moderators. Depending on which plan you select, every webinar is limited to either two to four hours.

To make your decision a little easier, we’ve prepared the table below to provide an overview of the top six webinar providers.