Google Hangouts [EOL] Reviews

I am using Google Hangouts for classes online if we do not have physical lectures in the classroom. For example, a lecturer schedules a class at a specific time and then we use a link to join the video call.

The most valuable feature of Google Hangouts is the ability to record the classes that I'm not able to attend. I can use the class recording to view whatever I missed later.

Google Hangouts could improve by allowing someone to record a meeting without the need to have a company email. You cannot record with a Gmail account.

I have been using Google Hangouts for approximately three years.

Google Hangouts is stable as long as you have a reliable internet connection and there is nothing wrong with our system.

The scalability of Google Hangouts has been good in my experience. We only have a few people in the class and we haven't faced any problem with anyone having to be kicked out of the meeting because it was not able to accommodate the numbers.

We have approximately 40 people per class that are using the solution. In our whole university, I am not sure of the total number of users that are using it.

We have a number of online lectures and they have increased this year, there is a plan to increase the usage.

I have not had any problems with the need to contact support.

The initial setup of Google Hangouts is straightforward. The setup was basic, it only involves opening an application, scheduling, or starting a call immediately.

The implementation of the solution can be done in-house and it does not require a third-party implementation.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Google Hangouts a nine out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for meetings. 

It works really well.

It's great for meetings. The solution is helpful for videos especially.

The product is very intuitive. When you get a meeting invitation, it's very easy to just join and go.

We feel the performance is quite good.

Google offers a trial version, which I have used. 

Support could be a bit faster. 

I've used the solution for a few meetings. 

The solution is stable and the connectivity is great. It's reliable. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. 

I can't speak to the scalability. I've never experimented with expanding it. 

I'm not sure how many people are using it. We are not using it in our organization, however, I will get invites from other organizations and use it that way.

Technical support is very good. We have no issues with Google support. We would, however, like them to increase the response rate and move a bit faster. 

Positive

I'm aware of Skype, however, I don't use it myself. 

We are using Microsoft Teams. 

I'm not sure what the licensing costs are. 

I'm not sure if we are using a specific version or not. 

I'd rate the product eight out of ten. It's pretty good overall. I'd recommend the product to others who need to run video conferences and meetings. 

We primarily use the solution for virtual meetings. We have a daily meeting each and every morning and that’s where we share where we are in the project and what we are developing, the issues we are experiencing and everything. Sometimes we also run remote interviews for people who would like to join our company. That's basically it.

We have a very basic usage of it. We don't use it as much as it could be leveraged. The item that we use most is sharing the screen and showing demos, however, there’s nothing really fancy on this side.

The solution completely fulfills our needs. We don’t have any complaints.

I started using the solution in 2015. I’m still using it.

The solution is extremely stable. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn’t crash or freeze. I have more issues with my own ADSL line than the infrastructure itself.

At the beginning, we were around seven people joining, so it was good for the team that we had. I have attended some conferences using this tool where we were over 100 people connected at the same time and there was absolutely no issue. It's got quite good scalability.

Now, we have only three people left in the company and we have an intern sometimes, so we can go from three to six at most in terms of users.

We’ve never had to escalate any issues to technical support. We haven’t had significant issues like that.

We also use Slack. We use a lot of Google solutions as our corporate mail is Gmail. I’ve also used Skype (as a corporate account) and Zoom. That was in previous companies. Zoom was okay, however, as far as my computer was concerned, it was 100% CPU usage, so I don't like it so much. We had some issues sometimes sharing when I had several screens on my desk. Sometimes when you don't share a good screen, it's very difficult to come back. With Skype, it has been a long time since I have used it. However, I recall it was very basic. It doesn't have the same capabilities as seen in Google Hangouts.

The initial setup was very basic. I just clicked on the link in an email, and it just fired up on my Mac. I didn't have to do anything.

As end-users, we don’t have to deal with maintenance.

I’m unsure as to if it was done in-house. It’s just a corporate Google account, and that's it.

I don’t deal with licensing. I’m not sure what the costs would be.

Choosing this was a corporate choice. It was there before I came into the company.

We use the latest version of the solution. Everything is put to the latest version as soon as possible.

I’d recommend the solution to others. It’s very easy. It does the job, basically. You don’t need more reason than that.

I would rate the solution nine out of ten.

Google Hangouts is being used for virtual meetings, whether that's face to face or you're presenting your screen. There's also a whiteboard where you can brainstorm on the call itself, so that's about it.

Whatever features are on offer right now on Google Hangouts, I find all of them useful. I don't have a preference, and Google Hangouts doesn't have time limitations.

Google Hangouts is pretty good as it is, so there's nothing I would like to change about it.

I would like for the platform to have a call recording feature in the free version.

Google Hangouts is a stable platform.

Google Hangouts, being a Google product, is available and scalable. The free version works well for small-sized teams that have thirty to forty people, and that's good enough for us.

The technical support team for Google Hangouts has been pretty responsive and could solve whatever challenges arise, within a day or two.

Setting up Google Hangouts is very, very easy. You just open a Gmail account to get access to all the Google tools, including Google Hangouts. It's very easy to just set up a Gmail account, and you don't have to do anything else.

We are a small team and a small organization such as ours just uses the free version of Google, so there's no cost associated with Google Hangouts at the moment.

We evaluated Zoom and Microsoft Teams. We use Google Hangouts, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams, but use Zoom more often compared to the other two platforms.

Sometimes my company uses Google Hangouts, but that's very rare. Typically, the team uses Zoom, and Google Hangouts is used once or twice a month, and that's about it. My company is an end-user, not a partner of Google.

At the moment, there's no plan of increasing the number of users of Google Hangouts.

I would rate Google Hangouts eight out of ten.

I'd recommend the platform to other people.

I work for a project-oriented company, and we focus on product design and development, cloud services development, etc. We have multiple virtual meetings daily, both internally and with our clients, so our primary use case for Google Hangouts is for our meetings.

The value of Google Hangouts is that it enables us to communicate project status very effectively. It also allows us to plan effectively, and get people all over the world into our virtual meetings.

An additional feature I'd like to see in Google Hangouts is more of a personal preference, e.g. it's not a pain point. There may be little differences in the way virtual backgrounds are handled, but it's no big deal.

We've been using Google Hangouts for two years. The company started standardizing the use of the platform at the beginning of the pandemic, e.g. that's when we made the shift to Google Hangouts.

I've seen some stability problems in Google Hangouts, particularly when communicating with developers in Eastern Europe, but that's to be expected given the current situation there.

The initial setup for Google Hangouts was straightforward, and I never experienced any issues with it, but it would still depend on how technical the users are, e.g. the pain points are going to differ.

I evaluated Zoom.

The company I'm working for is a big Google user, so we use Google Hangouts, and we share Google sheets, Google docs, etc. We use different Google solutions for work.

I can't think of any pain points in Google Hangouts that would make me say: "I wish it had this capability, or not." I do so many virtual meetings, and I have to think if it's going to be on Zoom, or if it's going to be on Google Hangouts, e.g. what are we using for this meeting, because we have different clients, so every once in a while, we get called into someone else's meeting, but internally, we use Google Hangouts.

I'm in very much in favor of Dev Ops, e.g. I like to see those updates come, but I have no problems with updates for this platform, because Google is normally doing something, or fixing a problem, or providing an enhancement, etc. The key is I manage when I apply updates, so it's not a problem for me. For some people, it can be a problem, but the updates don't bother me. I managed a Dev Ops environment, so we were putting out updates regularly, so we don't surprise people too often.

I have no information on the pricing of Google Hangouts, because I was not involved in that aspect.

My advice  to others looking into implementing this platform is that we've had good success with it. I have no issues. It's worked for us, and we keep using it. We're not looking at anything else, so that for me, says it all.

I'm giving Google Hangouts a rating of eight out of ten, as I rarely give nines or tens.

Google Hangouts enables communication between peers.

I like that Google Hangouts has better history features now.

Google Hangouts is not as feature-rich as Slack, but it's sufficient.

I'd like to see more features in this tool in the next release. What they need to do is add more features.

I've been using Google Hangouts for a few years.

Google Hangouts is a stable product. I haven't seen any problems with its stability, so for me, it's stable.

It's hard for me to say if Google Hangouts is scalable, but if we're talking about scalability in terms of users, it allows many, many users.

Installing Google Hangouts was very easy. It comes with the package, e.g. this product comes out-of-the-box to a large extent.

I was able to evaluate Slack and Flowdock.

I have some experience with Zoom, but not so much. We mainly use Google Hangouts, Google Meet, and Slack.

We have several thousand users of Google Hangouts in the company, and we'll probably increase usage for it.

I've never contacted technical support for this product, e.g. currently we have no issues with it.

I'm not recommending Google Hangouts to others. I'm recommending Slack instead.

I'm unsure, but we're probably paying yearly for Google Hangouts.

I'm rating Google Hangouts a seven out of ten.

I use the solution mainly to attend meetings through a video call, especially when I have to present something and talk about it to a prospective client. I also use the tool for internal communications within my company so that I can communicate with my designer or project manager.

The features of Google Hangouts I find most beneficial for enhancing virtual communication stem from the tool's ability to provide its users with functionalities that allow them to make use of the product's sharing features. The fact that Google Hangouts is integrated with Google Calendar helps me to set up meetings easily. Most of my contact lists are in my Gmail account, making it very easy for me to pull out the details of the contacts or the potential attendees that I expect and want to invite to a meeting.

It would be better to have a feature for recording the meetings in Google Hangouts. I don't know if there is a feature in the basic version of Google Hangouts that allows for the recording of meetings, but I know that it is possible in Zoom. I think the advanced version or the licensed version of Google Hangouts may allow for the recording of meetings, but I have not explored it. Having a recording feature for the basic version of the tool would be helpful, as it is the only shortcoming of the product.

I have been using Google Hangouts for around ten years.

I have not had any issues with the stability of the product.

I have not had any issues with the scalability part of the product since I operate in a small team. In general, I don't know much about this scalability part of the product.

Only two people in my company use the product. There is an extended group of freelancers attached to my company who use Google Hangouts through their personal Gmail accounts.

I haven't had any issues with the solution's technical support. I rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

Positive

I use Zoom to attend meetings. I use Zoom and Google Hangouts. Cisco Webex is a tool that I used to use fifteen years ago. I started to use Google Hangouts because of Google Workspace,which comes with functionalities that allow its users to send emails and share documents. Zoom is better than Google Hangouts when it comes to the video conference part.

The installation part of the product is easy since one generally needs to use a browser to use the product. I can use the product on my phone by just installing the application, which is a pretty easy process with which I haven't had any issues.

I don't need to buy Google Hangouts separately because it comes free with Google Workspace, and it is also available for my personal Gmail ID.

I integrate Google Hangouts into my workflow for external client meetings or presentations by using my official email ID in Google Workspace, through which I can send meeting links and make use of the calendar invite feature to ensure that the details of the meeting are automatically integrated with Google Hangouts. I just create a meeting link through the calendar invite, and then I use it.

Speaking about whether Google Hangouts integration with other Google services has added any value to my user experience, I would say that value addition doesn't come from Google Hangouts alone. When I want to share some documents or spreadsheets, it is easy to invite those who have a Gmail account with Google Hangouts.

I haven't experienced any significant issues with connectivity or quality during the calls on Google Hangouts.

I rate the overall tool an eight out of ten.

Initially, Zoom had a time limit of 40 minutes, but now it's extended to 45 minutes. On the other hand, Google Meet allows meetings to last for an hour.

Moreover, I like the icons Google Meet has. Google Hangouts has sophisticated features and a data license. Google Meet downloads faster.  It does not take a lot of time.

Let me compare it with Zoom. Google Hangouts can't handle a large number of people. It has a limit of around 900 participants. Zoom also has limitations. So, there is room for improvement. 

Another area of improvement is icons.  I believe they could enhance the icon selection feature. It would be great to have more options for icons like Zoom does. It's not necessarily a critical improvement, but it would add a nice touch and provide users with more customization options.

Google Meet should extend the time limit for a meeting from five minutes to at least thirty-five minutes. I may be mistaken, but it seems like an appropriate duration for your average meeting. 

Additionally, when joining a call on Google Meet, it would be helpful to know how many participants are already in the call before joining. This feature is available in Zoom, and I find it quite useful. I prefer Zoom and appreciate the ability to immediately join a call without having to wait for an invitation. It's convenient to know how many participants are already on the call before joining.

I would rate the stability of this solution an eight out of ten. 

Overall, I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten. Some issues with scalability. 

In my organization, we have around 800 users utilizing Google Meet, and it handles a large number of participants well.

The initial setup is very easy. Google Hangouts is very user-friendly. 

Google Hangouts is not too expensive to maintain. Moreover, it doesn't consume much data and has affordable pricing.

Companies seem to prioritize cost-cutting and choosing a reliable solution. They want something that meets their needs without any surprises. 

My advice to others considering using it would be to give Google Meet a try, especially if they are in need of a solution suitable for larger companies. The features are user-friendly, and navigating through the platform is easy.

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

We primarily use the solution for virtual meetings. 

It works well. It makes having meetings very easy.

The interface is fine.

It is user-friendly, and we have no issues navigating the product. You simply book a meeting, send an invitation, and go into the meeting. That's it. 

The initial setup is very easy.

The solution is stable.

Pricing is very reasonable, and there are multiple licensing tiers to choose from. 

The solution could integrate more automation into the product. 

I've used the solution for five years. 

The stability is very good. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. It is reliable. OI'd rate the stability eight out of ten. 

I've never tried to scale the solution. I cannot speak to the scalability process. 

20 to 30 people use the solution in our company.

We do not have plans to increase usage. 

I have never used Google's technical support. 

I did not use any other solution previously. 

I found the initial setup to be very straightforward. It is not overly complex. It's very fast. It takes ten seconds to deploy it and get up and running. 

I am able to handle the initial setup myself in-house. I do not need any consultants or outside assistance. 

There is licensing required. You can choose whichever plan makes sense for your company. The price is okay. It's not overly expensive. 

I do not know which version of the solution we're using.

We're an SMB.

I'd recommend the solution to others. 

I would rate the solution eight out of ten. 

We are using the solution for online meetings. It has become popular when people were working from home.

The most valuable feature of Google Hangouts is its popularity. A lot of people use Google. Since the solution is from Google and many of us use Google solutions regularly, it is easy to use.

The call reliability could improve in Google Hangouts.

I have been using hangouts for a few years.

The stability of Google Hangouts has had some issues, such as video call delays. The stability could improve.

I rate the stability of Google Hangouts an eight out of ten.

We have approximately 100 people using this solution in my organization.

I have not contacted the vendor for support.

I have used Zoom in parallel with Google Hangouts. We use Google Hangouts mostly for internal meetings and Zoom for external meetings.

The initial setup of Google Hangouts is simple.

I did the implementation of the solution myself.

I have not found any profound differences between Google Hangouts to other similar solutions on the market.

There is not any maintenance needed for this solution.

I rate Google Hangouts an eight out of ten.