There are so many webinar platforms on the market today that creating a shortlist is time-consuming. There is no single webinar platform suitable for every situation. A Fortune 500 company might want a webinar able to support thousands of attendees and provide detailed analytics. A small company might be more focused on an affordable price.
To help you save time, use this guide to the seven best webinar platforms and see how they compare in features, integrations, and more.
What Is The Goal Of Your Webinar?
Before diving into the specifics of the best platform for webinars on the market, let’s consider goals for a moment. Webinars are typically offered for three reasons. First, sales webinars sell products and services (a good strategy for higher-priced products over $500 or $100). Second, a business can use a webinar as a lead generation tool – invite attendees to book appointments following the webinar. Third, some organizations use webinars to deliver educational content.
Don’t forget to check some great resources for virtual events for education and e-learning, sports, news publishing, and ecommerce at Arena’s website.
Take a few minutes to get clear on the goal of your webinar. Now, let’s take a look at some of the webinar platforms on the market.
1) Arena Live Chat
- Capacity: there is no limit on the number of live chat attendees.
- Free Trial Available: there is a free 14-day trial.
- Integrations: multiple integrations are available, including Arena for WordPress.
Arena Live Chat is an excellent solution for making your audience part of the conversation. When you give webinar attendees the ability to connect and ask questions, you’re more likely to achieve your goals. Once you select a video platform for your webinar, consider adding Arena Live Chat to give webinar participants a voice in the event. See how to enhance the e-learning experience by adding Live Chat, for instance.
2) GoToWebinar
- Capacity: depends on the plan. The Starter plan is limited to 100 participants.
- Free Trial Available: Yes, there is a 7-day free trial.
- Integrations: GoToWebinar includes integrations with G Suit, Salesforce, Microsoft Teams, and other apps.
GoToWebinar is one of the best-known webinar platforms on the market. Capterra has also highlighted the app as a top performer for live streaming. The app includes the ability to track attendees, record sessions, and run virtual classrooms.
3) WebinarJam
- Capacity: depends on the plan. The basic plan is limited to 500 attendees.
- Free Trial Available: there is no free trial available. However, the company offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.
- Integrations: WebinarJam integrates with sales and marketing apps such as Aweber, MailChimp, GetResponse, ClickFunnels, and LeadPages.
This cloud-based webinar platform gives users several helpful features to engage your audience. You can record webinars, run the event with multiple hosts and use polls to keep your audience engaged. The lack of a desktop app might turn off some users.
4) Livestorm
- Capacity: depends on the plan. The premium plan starts with a capacity of 100 attendees, while the enterprise plan can support up to 3,000 attendees.
- Free Trial Available: Livestorm offers a free Starter plan to run 20-minute events with a small number of people.
- Integrations: Livestorm has an impressive suite of native integrations such as Slack, Pipedrive, HubSpot, and Intercom. In addition, you can also use Zapier to connect Livestorm with other platforms.
This browser-based webinar tool is easy for people to join with a single click. Capterra has recognized Livestorm as an “emerging favorite” in three categories: live streaming software, video conferencing software, and webinar software. This webinar platform also makes it easy for attendees to join the conversation. It includes screen sharing, polls, and chat features. If you are looking for a webinar platform that can do double duty as a video platform for sales, Livestorm is a good option.
5) Zoom Video Webinars
- Capacity: up to 50,000 people (possibly the highest capacity webinar platform on the market)
- Free Trial Available: there is no free trial for Zoom Webinar. However, you can use essential Zoom Meetings with up to 100 participants for free (subject to a 40-minute limit).
- Integrations: Zoom Webinars offers an impressive variety of integrations: Zoom for HubSpot, Intercom, Domo, Eventbrite, Rev, MixMax, and dozens of others.
Zoom is best known as a video conferencing app. However, the company also has a webinar capability. While Zoom has a strong reputation as a video conferencing tool, it is less well known as a webinar platform. Zoom Webinars stands out for their scalability. It is tough to beat Zoom if you need to deliver a presentation to thousands of people with many different presenters.
6) Webex
- Capacity: depends on the plan. The Business plan supports 200 participants, while the Enterprise plan has “customizable” limits.
- Free Trial Available: there is a free plan available that can accommodate up to 100 people for a 50-minute session.
- Integrations: The Webex App Hub supports many popular apps such as Salesforce, Zapier, and security tools.
Webex is the webinar solution created by Cisco. The company has a good reputation for creating robust communication tools for corporate users. The platform’s paid plans include support for MP4 recordings, the ability to stream meetings from Facebook Live, and toll-free phone numbers for people who prefer to join by phone.
7) Adobe Connect
- Capacity: varies depending on the plan. The middle tier offering (Adobe Connect Webinars) starts with 100 participants, but you can pay for a higher capacity limit.
- Free Trial Available: yes, Adobe Connect currently offers a free 30-day trial.
- Integrations: Adobe Connect has fewer integrations than some of its competitions. Available integrations include ScheduleOnce, Blackboard, and SAP Enterprise Learning.
Adobe is best known for its graphic design apps. However, the company has also offered a webinar tool for several years now. The video app includes support for multiple hosts, polls, file sharing, and recording. That said, some reviewers have experienced problems with the product’s video quality.
Note that running Adobe Connect may require that you have Adobe Flash Player runtime installed. If you are aiming to maximize attendees, this requirement could be a problem.
What To Do After Choosing Your Webinar Platforms
Sorting through the webinar platforms to find the right tools for your company is just the first step. You have to give just as much attention to the content of your webinar. To help you craft a compelling experience, download Arena’s free ebook: How to Create Live Events
