Video calls is not an expensive affair anymore. Video calls and conferencing is now a popular trend and most of the major service providers offer you free and paid video conferencing solutions which is cheap, secured and better than traditional video conferencing. You just need to plug in a webcam and a microphone to your laptop or PC for video calls. Nowadays, video calling feature comes built-in with the latest smartphones and tablets. Let’s take a look at 7 highly affordable video conferencing solutions by some of the major players in this business.

Adobe Connect

Adobe Connect is a consistent cross platform video conferencing solution. The program’s base structure is developed in Flash, this is the reason the application runs seamlessly in PC, Mac and other major platforms. User can join an Adobe Connect meeting using their smartphone or tablet device. Adobe is a trusted brand and a big name in the software market.

Brother OminiJoin

Brother is a company well-known for multifunction devices such as printers, scanners and copiers. The company’s video conferencing solution, known as OmniJoin, is a reinvented video conferencing experience for the users. Using this video conferencing application you can allow up to 30 people to join a conference. The application is compatible with both Windows and Mac systems. The hardware used in this solution is pretty high-end, comes the ClearOne audio and Sony PTZ webcams.

Cisco WebEx Meetings

Cisco is a renowned name is manufacturing high quality industry standard networking products. Videoconferencing being an integral part of networking application, you can only expect the best from Cisco WebEx. You can five a trial to this service by using their free WebEx module. It allows up to 3 people to join a video chat room. This unique feature offered in WebEx is Whiteboard sharing. You can share a common Whiteboard with all the chat mates. You will also get common videoconferencing features such as desktop sharing, document sharing and shared folder functionality.

Citrix GoToMeeting

Although, Citrix is not available for free. You have to pay a minimum subscription charge of $49 a month for using the GoToMeeting solution for up to 25 participants. This video conferencing solution is designed for professionals. The $49 plan is very attractive as long as it suffices your video conferencing requirements. The interface is a little messy with detached subpanels for video chat, whiteboard and controls. However, with a little practice you can optimize the look of Citrix GoToMeeting according to your needs.

Google+ Hangouts

Here comes the giant! G+ is all set to rule the world of professional video conferencing with its powerful features designed for every user. A beginner in video conferencing can easily setup a conference using the Hangout application. It is free and all your Gmail contacts can participate in a conference. Those who do not have webcams can participate via voice and text conferencing. This light weight video calling application can be customized by using other Google products inside the app interface.

Microsoft Lync

Microsoft provides its very own group conferencing solution with Lync. The only problem with this application is that all the participants need to have an Office 365 account. Opening a Office 365 account is not like signing up for a new email ID. So, prepare yourself for the hassles. The video stream may lag even in high bandwidth environment. The overall quality and basic video conferencing features are there in this application but there are still compatibility issues persists with the Windows and Mac clients.

Skype 5.10

Skype is the most popular application for video communication. The Skype 5.10 version features multi-participants video conferencing and since then the product is a big hit. The annual subscription for premium Skype access is just $53.94. It is way cheaper than other service providers.

Author Bio:

Michelle Patterson has been learning and writing about the new IP based communication technologies on TeleSystems Blog. She loves sharing information about VoIP. Read her post to keep yourself updated.