Webinar software and video conferencing look similar and are built for opposite situations. Conferencing assumes everyone can talk. Webinar software assumes one person presents and hundreds watch, with controlled interaction through chat, Q&A and polls.
Running a 200-person webinar on a conferencing tool works until someone unmutes. Running a five-person meeting on webinar software is needlessly restrictive. Buying the wrong category is the most common mistake here.
Decide These Three Things First
Live, automated, or on-demand? Live is a real event. Automated (“evergreen”) replays a recording on a schedule while presenting as live. On-demand plays whenever someone registers. Not every tool does all three, and automated webinars have a disclosure issue covered below.
How many attendees, realistically? Pricing tiers are built around attendee caps and this is what you will actually hit. Registrations are not attendance — a substantial share of registrants never show up, so buying for your registration target wastes money.
What happens afterwards? The webinar is rarely the point. If you need attendance data flowing into your CRM or email platform to trigger follow-up, that integration is the feature that matters most and it is often gated to higher tiers.
The Ten
1. Zoom Webinars
An add-on to Zoom Meetings rather than a separate product. Familiar to attendees, reliable, and handles large audiences.
The familiarity argument is genuine — nobody fails to join a Zoom because they cannot work out the software.
Suits: businesses already on Zoom. Watch: it is a paid add-on on top of your existing plan, priced by attendee capacity. Marketing features are thinner than purpose-built platforms.
2. Livestorm
Browser-based, so attendees join without installing anything — which measurably improves attendance. Strong on registration pages, email sequences and analytics.
Suits: marketing teams running webinars as a lead channel. Watch: pricing scales by active contacts, not just attendees.
3. Demio
Built specifically for marketing webinars, browser-based, with good automation and clean registration flows.
Suits: small marketing teams wanting webinars to feed a funnel without heavy setup.
4. WebinarJam / EverWebinar
WebinarJam handles live; EverWebinar handles automated. Feature-rich, aimed squarely at direct-response marketing with offer timers, chat injection and replay control.
Suits: direct-response marketers running a sales webinar model. Watch: some features — simulated live chat, fake attendee counts — raise the disclosure issues discussed below. Use with care.
5. GoTo Webinar
Long-established, stable, with solid reporting and a good track record on reliability at scale.
Suits: businesses running regular professional webinars, particularly where corporate attendees expect a familiar name.
6. Microsoft Teams Live Events / Town Hall
Included with many Microsoft 365 plans. If you already pay for Microsoft 365, check what your licence includes before buying anything.
Suits: internal events and organisations standardised on Microsoft. Watch: weaker on registration pages and marketing analytics.
7. Riverside
Records locally at high quality then uploads, so recording quality does not depend on connection stability. Primarily a podcast and video recording tool with webinar capability.
Suits: businesses repurposing webinar content into video and podcasts afterwards.
8. Contrast or StreamYard
Streaming-focused, strong for broadcasting to social platforms simultaneously with good production features — overlays, branding, guest management.
Suits: businesses running public-facing streams rather than gated webinars.
9. BigMarker
Highly configurable, with strong virtual event and multi-session capability beyond single webinars.
Suits: businesses running conferences or multi-track events.
10. Google Meet with livestreaming
Available on some Google Workspace tiers for larger view-only audiences. Basic, and free with a subscription you may already hold.
Suits: simple internal broadcasts for Workspace organisations.
How They Compare
| Product | Live | Automated | Browser-based | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zoom Webinars | Yes | Limited | App preferred | Existing Zoom users |
| Livestorm | Yes | Yes | Yes | Marketing teams |
| Demio | Yes | Yes | Yes | Small marketing teams |
| WebinarJam / EverWebinar | Yes | Yes | Yes | Direct-response marketing |
| GoTo Webinar | Yes | Yes | App preferred | Professional, reliable |
| Teams Live Events | Yes | No | Yes | Microsoft organisations |
| Riverside | Yes | No | Yes | Content repurposing |
| StreamYard | Yes | No | Yes | Social streaming |
| BigMarker | Yes | Yes | Yes | Multi-session events |
| Google Meet | Yes | No | Yes | Workspace internal broadcasts |
Pricing is tiered by attendee capacity and changes regularly. Verify current pricing and — critically — what happens when you exceed your attendee cap, since some platforms cut off additional attendees rather than charging overage.
Automated Webinars: Be Careful Here
This deserves its own section because it carries genuine legal risk that vendors do not highlight.
Automated webinar tools can present a recording as though it is happening live — countdown timers, simulated attendee counts, chat messages injected on a schedule. Some platforms market these features prominently.
Presenting a recording as live, displaying fabricated attendee numbers, or simulating chat from people who are not there can constitute a misleading commercial practice. In the UK and EU this falls under consumer protection law covering misleading actions and omissions; in the US the FTC has long-standing authority over deceptive practices, and its guidance on endorsements and testimonials is relevant where fake engagement implies social proof.
Automated webinars themselves are entirely legitimate. Labelling them accurately — “on-demand” or “recorded” — costs you very little and removes the exposure. Fabricating live attendance is where the risk sits.
If you are running these, take advice for your jurisdiction and market.
What Actually Determines Success
Registration-to-attendance rate. Reminder emails at 24 hours, one hour and at start time make a substantial difference. Check the platform sends these and that you can edit them.
Whether attendees have to install something. Browser-based joining consistently produces better attendance than requiring a download.
The replay. Most registrants never attend live. If the replay is not automatically sent, you lose most of the audience you paid to acquire.
Integration with your email platform or CRM. Attendance and engagement data needs to reach where your follow-up happens. Verify the specific integration before buying.
A dry run. Every platform behaves differently under load with screen sharing. Test with colleagues before the real thing.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Buying capacity for registrations rather than attendance. A large share of registrants never attend. Size for realistic attendance.
- Not checking what your existing subscription includes. Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace both include broadcast capability on some tiers.
- Presenting recordings as live. Legally risky and reputationally worse when discovered.
- No reminder sequence. The single biggest lever on attendance.
- Forgetting the replay. Most of your audience will only ever watch this.
- Requiring a download. Costs attendance measurably.
- No dry run. Screen sharing, audio and slides all behave differently under real conditions.
- Ignoring data protection. Registration collects personal data — you need a lawful basis, a privacy notice, and to honour consent choices for follow-up marketing.
- No plan for afterwards. The webinar is the start of the sequence, not the outcome.
FAQs
What is the difference between webinar software and Zoom Meetings?
Meetings assume everyone participates. Webinar software separates presenters from attendees, controls interaction through Q&A and chat, and adds registration, reminders and analytics. Zoom Webinars is a paid add-on to Zoom, not the same as Zoom Meetings.
Do I need webinar software or can I use conferencing?
Under about 25 attendees with genuine discussion, conferencing is fine. Above that, or where you need registration pages, reminder sequences and attendance analytics, webinar software earns its place.
Are automated webinars legal?
Automated and on-demand webinars are entirely legitimate. Presenting a recording as live, showing fabricated attendee counts or simulating chat can constitute a misleading commercial practice under UK and EU consumer law and FTC authority in the US. Label recordings accurately and take advice for your market.
How many registrants actually attend?
Substantially fewer than register, and the gap varies widely by audience, topic and reminder quality. Rather than relying on a benchmark, measure your own first few events and size your plan on that.
What is the best free webinar option?
Check what you already have — Microsoft Teams live events and Google Meet livestreaming are included on some Microsoft 365 and Workspace tiers. Most dedicated platforms offer trials rather than free tiers.
Should I gate the replay?
Sending the replay to everyone who registered is usually better than gating it again — they already gave you their details, and the replay is where most of your audience actually watches.
Key Takeaways
- Webinar software and conferencing solve different problems; buying the wrong one is the common error.
- Size your plan for realistic attendance, not registrations.
- Check Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace first — you may already have broadcast capability.
- Label automated webinars accurately; simulating live attendance carries real legal risk.
- Reminders and the replay matter more to results than any platform feature.
Before You Buy
Check what your Microsoft or Google subscription already includes, then run one webinar on it before paying for a dedicated platform. Your first event will tell you your real attendance rate, which is what you should be sizing against.
For the follow-up side, see our guides to AI email marketing prompts and ActiveCampaign vs Mailchimp — the sequence after the webinar is where the return actually comes from.