Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is the hub for teamwork in Microsoft 365, bringing people, conversations, and content all together.

Video & Webinar Platforms
★★★★☆ 4.3
1975 Founded
10001+ Employees
1,000,000+ organizations Customers
Redmond, Washington, United States Headquarters

Quick Facts

✓ Free Trial
Starting Price
4
Pricing Model
per-user
Free Trial
30 days
Company Type
public

About Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Corporation is a global technology company founded in 1975 and headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Best known for Windows, Office, and Azure, Microsoft has evolved into a cloud- and AI-first business serving organizations of every size across virtually every industry. With more than 228,000 employees worldwide and a broad portfolio spanning productivity, cloud infrastructure, business applications, and gaming, Microsoft is one of the largest and most influential software vendors in the world.

Microsoft Teams, launched in 2017, is the company’s flagship collaboration and communication platform within Microsoft 365. It unifies persistent chat, meetings, webinars, calling, and file collaboration in a single interface tightly integrated with Outlook, SharePoint, OneDrive, and the broader Microsoft 365 suite. Teams is positioned as the central hub where people can meet, message, co-author documents, and access key business apps without leaving the workspace.

For video and webinar use cases, Microsoft Teams offers scheduled and ad‑hoc meetings, interactive webinars with registration and reporting, and large-scale town hall events that can support thousands of attendees. Features such as screen sharing, live captions, recordings with transcripts, Q&A, polling, breakout rooms, and robust moderation controls make it suitable for training, marketing webinars, internal all‑hands meetings, and external customer events. Teams Premium further extends these capabilities with advanced webinar controls, branding, and higher attendee limits.

Adoption of Microsoft Teams is massive: estimates indicate more than 320 million users and over one million organizations worldwide rely on it, including the vast majority of Fortune 100 companies. Because Teams is included in many Microsoft 365 plans and benefits from enterprise-grade security, compliance certifications, and an extensive ecosystem of apps and certified devices, it occupies a leading position in the enterprise collaboration and video/webinar platform market, competing primarily with Zoom, Google Workspace/Meet, Cisco Webex, and Slack.

Key Features

Persistent team chat and channels - Organize 1:1, group, and channel-based conversations with rich formatting, file sharing, @mentions, emojis, and threaded replies.

HD video meetings - Schedule or start instant meetings with HD video, screen sharing, custom layouts, together mode, and support for up to 1,000 interactive participants with additional view-only attendees.

Webinars with registration - Host interactive webinars with branded registration pages, configurable registration fields, manual approval, waitlists, and automated confirmation and reminder emails.

Town halls and large events - Run one-to-many town hall broadcasts with presenter green room, producer controls, translated captions, DVR-style playback, and attendee reporting for events of up to tens of thousands of viewers.

Integrated file sharing and coauthoring - Store and share files via OneDrive and SharePoint, and coauthor Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote documents in real time directly inside Teams.

Teams Phone and cloud calling - Add PSTN calling with auto attendants, call queues, voicemail, call transfer, call recording, and advanced call routing for a full cloud phone system.

AI-powered meeting intelligence - Use Microsoft 365 Copilot in Teams for AI-generated meeting recaps, action items, summaries, and intelligent transcript search (with appropriate licenses).

Meeting recordings, transcripts, and live captions - Record meetings and webinars with automatic transcription, searchable transcripts, live captions, and translated captions in supported languages.

Breakout rooms and interactive tools - Split large meetings into breakout rooms and engage participants with polls, Q&A, reactions, and Microsoft Whiteboard for collaborative brainstorming.

Extensive app and integration ecosystem - Add hundreds of first- and third-party apps (e.g., project management, CRM, ITSM, HR tools) as tabs, bots, and message extensions to streamline workflows.

Security, compliance, and governance - Benefit from enterprise-grade security, data encryption, retention policies, eDiscovery, DLP, compliance recording, and a rich admin and reporting toolkit.

Teams Rooms and certified devices - Extend Teams into conference rooms with Teams Rooms systems, certified cameras, speakers, phones, and headsets for high-quality hybrid meetings.

Cross-platform and hybrid work support - Access Teams on web, desktop, and mobile with presence, notifications, and seamless handoff between devices to support remote and hybrid work scenarios.

Pros & Cons

👍 Pros

  • Deep integration with Microsoft 365 apps like Outlook, OneDrive, SharePoint, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, reducing context switching and centralizing work.
  • Strong collaboration capabilities, including real-time coauthoring, persistent channels, and threaded conversations that keep projects and teams organized.
  • Robust video meeting and webinar features such as screen sharing, background effects, live captions, recordings, and breakout rooms for training and events.
  • Highly effective for remote and hybrid work, giving users a single app for chat, meetings, calls, and files across desktop, web, and mobile devices.
  • Extensive ecosystem of third-party integrations and add-ins (e.g., project management, CRM, ITSM tools) that allow teams to bring workflows into the platform.

👎 Cons

  • Resource-intensive application that can be slow to load and may cause lag or high CPU and memory usage on lower-spec machines or when many apps are open.
  • User interface can feel busy or cluttered, with a learning curve for new users and difficulty navigating between chats, channels, and teams.
  • Notifications are sometimes inconsistent or overwhelming, leading to missed messages or excessive alerts across desktop and mobile.
  • Search functionality for older messages and files is not always intuitive or accurate, making it harder to quickly find historical content.
  • Users report occasional glitches and connectivity issues, such as delayed status updates, dropped calls, or freezing during meetings.

User Reviews

G2
4.4
★★★★☆
Capterra
4.5
★★★★★
TrustRadius
8.0
★★★★★

Integrations

Microsoft 365 Microsoft Outlook Microsoft SharePoint Microsoft OneDrive for Business Microsoft Power BI Microsoft Power Automate Microsoft Power Apps Microsoft Forms Salesforce Sales Cloud Salesforce Platform ServiceNow IT Service Management HubSpot Marketing Hub HubSpot Sales Hub Asana Jira monday.com Trello Miro Dropbox Google Workspace Google Meet Calendly GitHub Slack Zoom Workplace Workday HCM Zendesk for Customer Service Zapier

Best For

Company Size

smb mid-market enterprise

Industries

Technology Professional Services Financial Services Healthcare Education Manufacturing

Use Cases

Internal and external video meetings Interactive webinars and virtual events Hybrid work collaboration and team messaging Training, onboarding, and town hall broadcasts Cloud phone system and contact routing via Teams Phone

FAQ

What is Microsoft Teams?

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Microsoft Teams is Microsoft's cloud-based collaboration and communication platform that brings together chat, video and audio meetings, webinars, calling, and file sharing in a single application. It is part of Microsoft 365 and integrates deeply with apps such as Outlook, SharePoint, OneDrive, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Power BI, allowing teams to meet, collaborate on documents in real time, and access business apps all within one hub.

How much does Microsoft Teams cost?

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Microsoft Teams offers a free plan aimed primarily at home and very small teams, plus several business plans. For business use, Microsoft Teams Essentials starts at around $4 per user per month (annual billing) and provides core chat, calling, and video conferencing features. Teams is also included in Microsoft 365 Business Basic at about $6 per user per month and Microsoft 365 Business Standard at about $12.50 per user per month (annual billing), which add business email, cloud storage, Office apps, and more. Enterprise plans (such as Microsoft 365 E3/E5) and add-ons like Teams Phone and Teams Premium are available for organizations with more advanced requirements.

What are the main features of Microsoft Teams?

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Key Microsoft Teams features include persistent team chat and channels; HD video and audio meetings with screen sharing and breakout rooms; interactive webinars with registration, Q&A, polling, and attendee reporting; large-scale town halls; integrated file storage and coauthoring via OneDrive and SharePoint; a full cloud phone system through Teams Phone; AI-powered meeting recaps and summaries via Microsoft 365 Copilot; and strong security, compliance, and admin controls. Teams also supports a large ecosystem of third-party apps and integrations to extend workflows.

Who are Microsoft Teams's main competitors?

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Microsoft Teams competes with several major collaboration and video/webinar platforms. The most common alternatives are Zoom Workplace (for meetings, webinars, and team chat), Google Workspace with Google Meet (for organizations standardized on Google's productivity stack), Cisco Webex Suite (for enterprise conferencing and calling), and GoTo Meeting/GoTo Webinar. Slack is another frequent alternative for chat-centric collaboration, often paired with separate video tools.

Is Microsoft Teams good for small businesses?

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Yes. Microsoft Teams is well suited for small businesses, especially those that want professional video meetings, webinars, and collaboration tools without managing separate point solutions. Teams Essentials provides affordable meetings, chat, and calling, while Microsoft 365 Business Basic and Business Standard bundle Teams with business email, Office apps, and 1 TB of storage per user. Smaller organizations with limited IT support also benefit from Microsoft's managed cloud, built-in security, and 24/7 technical support. That said, very small teams with minimal needs and no use of Microsoft 365 may find lighter-weight standalone video tools sufficient.

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