What’s the difference between a large meeting and a virtual webinar? In what case would I use one or the other? What’s a recurring webinar? These and other burning questions are often asked when us Zoomers encounter the public. Well then, let’s dive into the fascinating world of big ole’ virtual gatherings!

Large Meetings

Large meetings are your regular Zoom meetings – you know, where everyone meets with video, audio, screen sharing, and a whole bunch of collaboration features – but they’re super sized. Regular Zoom meetings can have up to 100 video participants. Large meetings come in different sizes: 100, 200, 300, and 500 video participants. 500 participants all talking and sharing sounds a bit unwieldy at first, but we’ve given you tools (listed in chart below) to help you manage this group.

You can find most of these features by clicking Manage Participants at the bottom of your Zoom meeting window. When would you want to use a large meeting instead of a webinar? Large meeting is best when you want everyone to feel like full participants. For example, an internal all hands meeting. Video Breakout Rooms also make large meetings ideal for teaching and training.

Webinars

While large meetings are bigger Zoom meetings, Zoom Webinars has different features built specifically for webinar use cases. These use cases include any gathering where you’re expecting a lot of people (i.e. more than 500). Webinar is also great for large gatherings external to your organization (such as marketing webinars) because it is easiest to provide a highly controlled, polished first impression in a webinar.

Finally, if you’re hosting an event only once, or infrequently, our webinar option offers added flexibility because we give the option to purchase one month at a time instead of an ongoing subscription. So which one is right for you? That depends on what features you need. Here’s a handy breakdown of Large Meeting vs. Zoom Webinars features…

If you’re trying to get a big group of people, or a really big group of people, together online, look no further than Zoom. Whether you go with Large Meeting or Zoom Webinars, you really can’t go wrong. It’s a matter of choosing the features that will create the right experience for your participants. Let’s discuss your specific goals and needs – sign up for a live demo with a Zoom Product Specialist!