Google Meet vs Wire

Google Meet

The evidence proves scale and nothing else: 100/150/500/1000 participants published per plan, 24-hour meetings, in-domain live streaming on Enterprise, a hardware add-on and noise cancellation. Not one word on screen sharing, breakout rooms, host moderation, or behaviour on a bad connection — capacity without documented controls doesn't clear the 5 anchor.

Wire

Instant meetings with a published limit of 150 video conference participants on the paid tier are what the captured pages show of the call itself. I found no public information on screen sharing, breakout rooms, host moderation such as mute-all, or how the call behaves on a constrained connection — I have to score the silence.

Google Meet

Nowhere does the evidence state what is encrypted, who holds the keys, or who can get into a meeting — no TLS statement, no E2EE, no lobby, no passcode, no admission control for Meet at all. The only security-adjacent facts are Google-wide privacy machinery (transparency report, deletion process, complaint handling), which say nothing about a meeting; undocumented is the 0-1 floor.

Wire

This is the case I usually have to dig for: text, voice, video and files are end-to-end encrypted by default under MLS, with the vendor stating plainly it has no access to encryption keys and no backdoors, and the server only ever seeing encrypted data. The cryptography is open source on GitHub and independently audited, forward secrecy and post-compromise security are named, device fingerprints can be verified with new-device notification, ID-Shield ties users to your identity provider, and guest links are password-protected and admin-restrictable. Key handling is explained down to the TreeKEM mechanism, so I have little left to ask.

Google Meet

Nothing evidences how a single participant joins: no browser joining, no guest access by link, no dial-in, no captions, no accessibility statement anywhere in the evidence. The one adjacent fact is that Google collects mobile network and carrier data — that implies devices exist, not that anyone can reach a meeting; total silence on every element of the anchor is the floor.

Wire

Guests can join by password-protected link without an account, and one account syncs across up to 8 devices — that is the whole of the reach story on these pages. I found no public information on browser joining without an install, telephone dial-in, live captions, keyboard or screen-reader operation, or behaviour on a poor mobile connection.

Google Meet

Recording appears from the Standard plan and attendance tracking on Plus, but the evidence never says who may record, whether participants are notified, or where recordings are stored; what exists is generic — domain admins can restrict deletion and privacy settings, and data can auto-delete after set periods — plus Vault retention tooling. Attendance tracking arrives with no evidenced off-switch, which is exactly what a works council will ask me about.

Wire

I found no public information on meeting recording itself — not who may record, not whether participants are told, not where a recording would sit or how long it would live. What the pages do document is retention hygiene around everything else: encrypted messages deleted after delivery, logs kept at most 90 days, usage data deleted after 365 days, servers in Germany and Ireland, self-deleting messages, and an admin console that can restrict file sharing and guest links.

Google Meet

Identity plumbing exists — Secure LDAP on Plus, Cloud Identity Premium and DLP on Enterprise — and a Meet Hardware add-on covers room systems, but no calendar integration is named, no SAML/OIDC or documented API appears, and deployment is cloud-only with no alternative evidenced.

Wire

Deployment is genuinely the customer's choice: on-premises is offered with every feature MLS-protected across cloud and on-premises alike, SAML SSO and SCIM sit in the admin console, an open-source SDK on JVM with TypeScript on the way supports webhooks and in-channel apps, and federation plus ID-Shield bind identity to your own provider. The gap I cannot overlook is the calendar and the meeting room: I found no public information on any calendar integration or room-system support, so the scheduling layer of the stack is invisible here.

Google Meet

The pipeline found jurisdiction, ownership, residency and subprocessor exposure all unknown; the vendor is Google LLC of Mountain View, media routing is unstated, and subprocessors are described only as unnamed 'affiliates and trusted businesses or persons' processing on Google's instructions. Google Ireland is the designated EEA controller and an 'enterprise data regions' feature is named, but neither says where meeting media actually flows — one point, no more.

Wire

Media and data sit in Germany and Ireland, the hosting subprocessor is named as AWS in the EU, ISO 27001 and 27701 are published, a complete subprocessor list with locations is public, transfer safeguards are stated, and the on-premises option removes the hosting question entirely. What holds this back: the contracting entity is Wire Swiss GmbH in Zug, Switzerland — Wire Germany GmbH appears only as an Article 27 GDPR representative — and payment processing runs through Stripe in the USA, named as a non-EU location in the published list.

Google Meet

Three tiers are computable from the public page — EUR per user with monthly vs 16%-discount annual billing, participant caps of 100/150/500/1000, 24-hour meetings and pooled storage stated. But Enterprise is 'Contact sales', the Meet Hardware and Voice add-ons are 'sold separately' with no prices, and dial-in rates and VAT treatment are never mentioned — a solid 5 pushed to 6 on capacity disclosure.

Wire

The per-person prices are public with the billing period stated: €7.45 per person/month on annual payment or €8.94 per person/month on monthly payment for teams up to 100 people, with video conferences up to 150 participants and a free tier up to 5. Above 100 people every tier is 'Custom', and I found no public information on VAT treatment, minimum term, or what the optional support levels cost, so a larger buyer cannot compute an invoice from these pages.