Facebook Messenger Rooms vs Google Meet: Which Video Calling App Should You Use?

Facebook launched Messenger Rooms to meet the spike in people’s demand for video calls. But Facebook isn’t the only company working on its game. Google Meet, a video conferencing application, is now available to everyone. How do they differ and which apps should you use as an end user?

While Google Meet is a video calling app, Facebook Messenger is primarily a messaging app. While there is a few overlaps, they differ significantly under the hood. Let’s understand what these differences are and how they affect the way you work.

1. User Interface

Rooms are part of Messenger and not a separate app. It’s a feature that Facebook will bring to Instagram, WhatsApp and Portal later on. Most of you should be familiar with the Messenger layout, but here is the quick version. Note that you need a Facebook account for Rooms and a Google account for Meet.

The mobile app has two tabs called Chats and People. The first is where you’ll find all your recent individual and group chats. The second is where you’ll find all your contacts. The People section is further divided into Active (online contacts) and Stories tabs. Under the Active tab you will find the Create a Room option.

Meet has a simple interface with two options at the bottom. The new meeting button will create a room and invite everyone and the Meeting code to join a meeting by entering the invite code. The sidebar menu holds the settings.

Messenger is a little busier with all the contacts and chats, but it’s not that bad. This is what most chat and messaging apps look like. Meet looks more minimalist and accurate.

2. Creating a Room

Creating rooms is easy in Messenger Rooms on the web and mobile apps. Simply click the Create New Room button within the Messenger app, Facebook News Feeds, Groups and Events. I am using Messenger below.

After creating a room, you can turn off the sound or video as you wish. There is a Share Link button to invite your Facebook and non-Facebook friends.

You can control who can join your room – who knows the link or has a Facebook ID. I don’t think there is an invitation code or waiting room feature that should be there.

It’s worth noting that you need a Google account to create and join a room in Meet. But you don’t need a Facebook account to join Messenger Rooms. Anyone with the link can join the room, as long as the creator chooses the correct option when sharing the link. This makes it easy for others who are not tech-savvy to join.

Rooms work like pop-up video chat rooms where guests can join and leave whenever they want.

Google Meet, like its counterpart Zoom, follows the code system. This is to make sure that no one with a connection will join the meeting and make a mess. You can choose to mute the audio/video before joining a room. This is helpful because you don’t want to embarrass yourself with a messy background. I wish there was a way to hide your background or use virtual backgrounds like in Teams and Zoom. No app works this option out of the box.

3. Managing a Room

When you enter or join a Google Meet room, you’ll see a list of all attendees with a separate tab for sending text messages. You can also send text messages in rooms via the Messenger app itself.

The Messenger app also supports sending emojis, images, locations, and voice messages. Again, neither app supports sending any attachments. This is odd, as Meet targets business users. You can share attachments in Meet via the Google Calendar app, but you can do so later.

You get some business-oriented options in Meet, such as Present screen, which is nothing more than a way to share your screen with attendees. Turning on subtitles will help those who don’t speak the lingua franca or have trouble understanding accents. Google Meet also supports phone calling, again with business users in mind.

Screen sharing is also available in Messenger Rooms. However, it misses file sharing and cloud storage support. Finally, G Suite users have the option to record and save their Google Meet video calls to Drive, which can come in handy for later review.

Rooms offer AR and lighting effects, but the promised immersive backgrounds are still nowhere to be found. Rooms take a more relaxed approach, while Meet is more professional.

Rooms are aimed at ordinary people who just want to stay in touch and celebrate their birthday parties. Meet is suitable for teams and businesses for video conferencing.

4. Application Integrations

As previously discussed, Facebook plans to roll out Rooms to the rest of its ecosystem, which includes WhatsApp, Instagram, and Portal. With this, Rooms will reach over one billion users worldwide. It also allows users on one platform to connect and communicate with users on another platform. App interoperability is something that will soon become the norm in the tech world.

Google Meet works with Drive to save recordings. It also integrates with the Calendar so you can schedule meetings, attach important/relevant files there, and send invites directly through the app.

Google also recently integrated Meet with Gmail. This makes a lot of sense, as most businesses use Gmail for formal communication.

5. Privacy and Security

Facebook has a dubious reputation for protecting users’ privacy. As stated earlier, there are no codes or waiting room features. Anyone with the link can join Facebook Messenger Rooms. However, if you create a room through the Feed, you can select specific friends who can view and join it. Just like you do when you create a post. Any room created within a Group is more general in nature. In short, the privacy and security of the room created and who can participate will depend on how and where it is created. You can lock a room and also remove attendees if needed.

Google Meet has a code system, so only those with this system can join the meeting. Participants must be “granted” to join and can be muted or removed if needed. Google Meet video calls recorded in Drive are encrypted in transit and at rest.

Meet Messenger Rooms

Messenger Rooms seems like the logical next step for Facebook. It aims to bring the users of all four applications closer together like a big and happy family. It seems to facilitate group video calls when communicating with friends and family members and absolute strangers.

Google Meet aims to reach slightly more personal goals as well as professional audiences such as corporate users and small teams. Features such as call recording, meeting scheduling, adding files show this. Still, we’ve seen casual users flock to Zoom before, and maybe that’s what made Google make Meet free for everyone. Instead, premium features like registration are reserved for G Suite users.

Next: Want to enable grid view in Google Meet so you can watch more people live on the screen? Click the link below to learn how.