Top 10 Group Video Calling tools for Eastern Europe

2024. Signal makes group video calls more convenient



Signal has added new features for group video calls, making it a viable alternative to Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams. The new "Calls" tab lets you create new calls, manage video call links, and view call history. Instead of creating a group, you can now simply share a call link, like in Zoom or Teams, and use that link for recurring meetings. You can also name calls, manually approve participants, remove them, or block them. Participants can raise their hand to ask a question, just like in Google Meet. On the desktop version of Signal, users can switch between different views: grid, sidebar, or presenter view.


2019. Skype to let you invite up to 50 people to a video call



Microsoft intends to significantly increase the number of participants who can take part in a group video or audio call in Skype. The limit will be raised to 50 people. Until now, Skype allowed free video calls for 25 participants. In this case, up to 10 video streams can be shown on the screen at the same time. Skype for Business supports conferences for 250 participants. For now, free group video calling for 50 participants will be available only in the beta version, and will appear in the public version in a couple of months. Other changes are also planned. If there are dozens of participants, Skype will send conversation notifications instead of the standard audio alert. If someone doesn't connect, you can "call" them after the conversation starts.


2018. WhatsApp Launched Encrypted Group Video Calls



WhatsApp has introduced group video calls for up to four people. While this isn't as large as its competitors, Facebook Messenger supports up to 50 participants, while Skype supports up to 25. However, WhatsApp has a key advantage: group calls are end-to-end encrypted. The new feature will gradually roll out to all users of the messenger's iPhone and Android apps.


2018. Instagram and WhatsApp to get group video calls



At Facebook's annual developer conference, F8, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Instagram's group calling feature is already available to some users participating in testing and will be rolled out to the wider audience "within weeks." Additionally, Instagram will redesign the Explore section and allow users to manually customize the camera's AR effects. Zuckerberg also announced a group video calling feature for WhatsApp.


2017. Google splits Google Hangouts into analogues of Skype and Slack



Online chat and video conferencing service Google Hangouts is remaining undervalued due to its unclear positioning. It's either a messenger, a video chat, a service for entertainment, or a business. And finally, Google has decided to clarify. Hangouts is now a service for business. Or rather, two services. The first, Hangouts Meet, is a video conferencing service (practically the same as before, but with a new design). It is available both separately and in G Suite, and allows you to create free video calls for up to 30 participants. The second, Hangouts Chat, is a group chat for business - a full-fledged alternative to Slack with rooms, bots, and integrations. It is available only to G Suite users. For the consumer segment, Google has already created messengers like Allo, Spaces, and Duo.

2010. Skype increased number of participants in video conferences to 10 people



As we know, the main feature of the next version of Skype 5 will be group video conferencing. Initially, Skype stated that the maximum number of participants in these video conferences would be five. However, the company apparently took into account that several free solutions already exist on the market that support video conferencing with 10 or more participants, such as TinyChat (12 participants) or TokBox (20 participants). The new (second) beta version of Skype 5 already allows up to 10 participants in a video call simultaneously. It's worth noting that for decent connection quality in such multi-user video conferences, Skype recommends using fairly powerful computers—at least a Core2Duo 2 GHz and an internet speed of 1-5 Mbps. As a reminder, video conferencing in Skype will be a paid service. You can download Skype 5 beta 2 here.