Zoom

So why is everyone still on Zoom? Because the person you're calling already knows how to open the link. Honestly, that counts for more than any feature.

Guests don't need an account or a paid plan. They click and they're in. It runs on Mac, Windows, Linux, iPhone, Android and in a browser, so nobody's left out because of their laptop.

The AI notes are the best new bit. On Pro, note-taking and meeting summaries are unlimited, and the note-taker also works for calls on other apps and for in-person chats. A separate note-taker like Granola is $14 a month by itself.

It's turned into a bundle as well. Team chat, whiteboards, short video clips, docs, a calendar and a booking page all live in the same app now. You may never touch half of it, but it's there.

And it goes big. 100 people on Basic and Pro, 300 on Business, 1,000 on Enterprise.

40 minutes. That's the free plan, and it's what the unhappy App Store reviews keep coming back to.

Reviewers remember when the limit was only for group calls. Now Zoom's own help page says nearly every meeting hosted on a free account ends at 40 minutes, one-on-ones included.

Some also say you have to wait 10 minutes before starting a new call. We couldn't find that wait on Zoom's site, so take it as their report and not a rule.

Paying isn't cheap, either. Pro is $14.16 a person a month and still tops out at 100 people. Cloud recording starts there too, and on free your recordings only save to your own computer.

And the browser version is the poor relation. Commenters say it's missing things the app has, and that Zoom keeps nudging you to download instead.

Basic is free: 40 minutes, 100 people, chat, 3 whiteboards and AI summaries for 3 meetings a month.

Pro is $14.16 a person a month if you pay for the year ($169.90), or $16.99 month to month. It lifts meetings to 30 hours and adds unlimited AI notes and 10 GB of cloud recordings.

Business is $18.33 on yearly billing, or $21.99 monthly. You're paying for 300 people per meeting, single sign-on and unlimited booking pages.

Need 500 in one call? That's the Large Meeting add-on, from $50 a month. The phone system, webinars and Rooms only come bundled in Enterprise, which means talking to sales.

Two things to know. The yearly price is taken in one go, up front. And verified nonprofits get 50% off Pro and Business.

Would we pay? For a team that's always in meetings with outsiders, yes. If your company already has Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, meetings are included there, so we'd start with those.

Zoom has 4.7 on the App Store from about 3.2 million ratings. That's a huge pile of people.

A lot of the happy reviews come from the lockdown years. Kids doing school, families doing birthdays, people without an iPhone who can't FaceTime. One fan says it's so reliable you stop noticing that it works on any device and any internet connection.

What do they like day to day? Small stuff, like mute being easy to find. And you choose camera on or off before you walk in.

The angry reviews are mostly about the time limit. One person points out that a 10-minute wait is no joke when the family you're calling is 11 hours ahead.

A teacher on an iPad was fed up with whiteboards that didn't save. That's from 2021, so it may be better now.

Hacker News is cooler on it. The talk there is mostly about the Linux app, which one commenter says freezes their computer whenever they copy from the chat.