The fun and engaging alternative to Teams meetings - right in your browser
Univid is a high quality alternative to Microsoft Teams that takes your meetings to the next level. Experiencing Teams fatigue? In Univid you can graphically brand and customize, get crisp HD quality, and interact through unique polls and quizzes.
Univid vs. Teams: What is right for me?
Browser-based or downloaded webinar software
While Teams is primarily a tool that every user must download, Univid is completely browser-based and requires no download for webinar participants or hosts. Many companies do not allow externally downloaded software, which can be a challenge. Also, most people these days expect to not have to download software, which can have an impact on attendence rate. Univid has full functionality in the browser and participants are invited with just a link.
Sharing videos smoothly via screen sharing can be a difficult task, but Univid uses the latest video technology, which makes it very stable for even the largest of meetings and events. It is possible to increase the quality of video up to studio quality and you can screen share adapted for video, which means that you can, for example, easily screen share Youtube videos during your video meeting or event.
Breakout sessions in Teams
Both Teams and Univid supports hosting breakout sessions. Holding breakout rooms and sessions in Univid does not require any technical background or expertise, but is based on drag-and-drop where you can easily generate new rooms, randomly distribute in the rooms and create rooms with your own names in advance! Teams also has a user interface for running breakouts. If you do not mind a slightly steeper learning curve, we encourage you to try both and decide for yourself! Teams mainly support breakouts in their downloaded client.
Customization and personalization
In Teams meetings, you can swap your background in the video for a virtual background of your choice. Otherwise, graphic customization is limited and you want e.g. have your logo with you, you have to work on getting it on your slides that you screen share. In Univid you can customize the entire session through header colors, brand with your logo and customize with your own background, which is suitable for you who want to create more personal meetings.
Meeting chat - experience and ease-of-use
The chat in Teams is generally hidden and you as a participant can choose to pick it up. The Teams chat is also mostly text-based, with limited options to send emojis, vote for different messages, or have clear discussion threads where you can respond to messages - so the chat is well suited for smaller meetings, where the chat is a complement.
In Univid, the chat is a bit more in the center as it is visible to all participants as a basic mode. In Univid's chat, participants can reply to posts in discussion threads, share their LinkedIn profile to network, send emojis, and respond to each post. In Univid, the host can also easily see which questions are most relevant by sorting by how the participants have reacted and see which questions are most voted on, something that today can be tricky to get quickly done in Teams.
Security and GDPR
Microsoft Teams is a US company and thus, according to the latest legislation in the GDPR, is difficult for many companies in the EU to use, as all data is stored and managed in a third country.
Univid is a good alternative if you want to make sure you keep track of security and GDPR, with servers located in the Nordics, local and friendly Swedish support and comfort when it comes to GDPR and security issues.96% of users use Univid again
According to a 2023 survey
What is a Teams meeting?
A Team Meeting is a digital meeting room where two or more participants can have their meeting. A Team meeting can refer to both a regular video meeting or a voice call. In general, however, Teams are about video meetings.
A video meeting or so-called Team meeting is usually held by inviting participants with a calendar invitation or link. The size of the meeting is usually between 2 and 25 people, but often larger meetings also take place in the form of a Team meeting. At the larger meetings, however, it is important to think about the format to ensure that all participants feel engaged, involved and focused.
For larger meetings, therefore, other formats such as webinars and even more professional live-streamed events grown up. These major types of events and happenings have also placed new demands on the choice of meeting tools. Thus, new solutions such as Univid has evolved to meet these new needs, with features such as reactions, polls and quizzes where participants can be involved without everyone necessarily having to participate in video.
Teams vocabulary - list of functions and concepts
Below is a list of the features and concepts used when it comes to Teams and video conferencing, and where these features are located in Univid:
Teams webinar
In Teams you can chosen between hosting so-called Teams meetings or Teams webinars - where only a host and a selected panel of speakers are shown in video. In Team's webinar, regular participants do not have the camera on, but only participate through chat, show of hands or Q&A. For Teams webinars, you can have many more participants than at Teams for meetings. Teams has simple polls, but for more powerful and graphically beautiful graphs and polls, a third-party app must be used such as. Mentimeter - this allows participants to jump to a new link, use another tab or even an additional device.
Teams webinar is thus used for larger presentations where the focus is on a speaker or a panel of speakers who share, lecture, share a screen or answer questions from the audience.
In Univid, participants can answer polls and quizzes, chat with each other and the speakers, they can also ask questions and react with different emojis and smileys in a beautiful flow that all other participants can enjoy. Everything is fully integrated with the broadcast, so participants can stay on one and the same link, throughout the broadcast! Univid is created for powerful webinars, where you can broadcast from the studio or your webcam in high video quality. The host can share screen in peace, with a click send out their pre-created polls and answer the most liked questions in the chat!
Teams waiting room
Teams waiting room means that the participants who navigate to the meeting link, before the meeting has been started by the host, end up in a so-called waiting room. The host can choose to admit participants in any order. It can often be difficult to keep track of all participants when there are larger meetings, as the host may have to accept each individual participant, which will be time consuming.
In Univid there is also a waiting room that is graphically appealing to your theme, background image, logo and title of the event. Here, the participants in peace and quiet can choose whether they want to create an account, or log in with a nickname, and take the opportunity to network while you as a host in peace and quiet prepare the last things before your event goes live!
Teams share screen
Teams share screen means that the host can share a screen with the meeting participants - so the participants will see the same thing as you see on your screen if you share a screen. As a host, you can choose to share both a window, a tab in the browser or your entire screen. The host can also choose to share audio or not. At a Team meeting, however, it is often a problem to screen share a video from e.g. Youtube. In addition, some hosts experience issues with all participants being able to screen share and 'take over' the meeting at any time, while in other tools there is a little more division between those who are allowed to speak and share the screen, and those who are the audience; which becomes important when it comes to larger meetings, webinars and events. In Univid, it is possible to share a screen and optimize for either video or still image. In this way, you can get perfectly streamed video sharing, without it hacking like Teams. So Univid is a great option for you who often want to share video via screen sharing at your Teams meetings.
Teams raise their hand
In Teams there is a feature to call attention, without need to turn on their camera or interfere with the flow of the meeting. This hand-raising function is available to all meeting participants, and is visible in the form of a small static symbol next to the participant's name in the participant list.
In Univid, participants can instead react with emojis and reactions, which all other participants and the host looks like a flow. This is instead a lively and dynamic flow of reactions that quickly gives the host a sense of what the participants think. Afterwards, you can analyze graphs of how the participants have generally reacted to different parts of the lecture or meeting, which is helpful in improving the content in the future. The basic reactions to Univid involve thumbs up, happy smiley, heart and impressed / surprised smiley - but you will soon also be able to choose your own for your video meeting!
