Comparison of Free Virtual Classroom Systems

We recently did a research on free virtual classroom systems available in the market to meet a customer need for whom we had developed VILT content. Here is our comparative analysis that you may want to use to select the tool which best suits your requirements –

Some other observations –

• App/Desktop sharing is limited to sharing either the full screen or a portion of screen, with no tool allowing user to select a specific application that should be shared (except Mikogo)
• Video is limited to webcam capture, and currently no tool provides support for capturing variable/HD resolution video
• Integration with calendar systems is not available with any of the tools, which you would have to manage externally
• All of the open source systems use Flash player and Java applet for desktop sharing, which allows them to work on all the browsers supporting Flash, but will cause problem on iOS & various versions of Android

Our recommendation –

• Use Mikogo if your needs are limited to just sharing your desktop/app with participants. You can combine it with Skype for audio communication, or alternatively use its integrated telephony option (Available in US & some European countries).
• But if you wish to also use video, VoIP, chat, whiteboard etc or wish to integrate a VCR in your application, then you may want to give Open Meetings a shot, which I found to be better than rest of the open source tools