Google Meet vs Wire

Google Meet

The capacity ladder is the one thing the evidence commits to per plan — 100, 150, 500, 1000 participants, 24-hour meetings on every tier, in-domain live streaming on Enterprise. Beyond that, nothing: no screen sharing, no breakout rooms, no host moderation, no word on behaviour when the connection degrades — capacity is claimed, the meeting's workings are not.

Wire

The pricing page publishes a 150-participant cap for video conferences on the paid tier, and instant meetings and conferencing are named core capabilities, but that is where the public information stops. I found no public information on screen sharing, breakout rooms, host moderation controls, waiting rooms, or documented behaviour on a constrained connection — a capacity number without the meeting mechanics a buyer needs.

Google Meet

I read every line for the sentence that says which meetings are end-to-end encrypted, on which plan, and what stops working — it does not exist, and neither does a plain TLS or encryption-at-rest claim for Meet media. DLP, context-aware access and endpoint management on Enterprise are admin security, not meeting encryption; on this sheet encryption is undocumented.

Wire

This is the one criterion written in full sentences: end-to-end encryption is the default for text, voice, video and files, protected by MLS across both cloud and on-premises versions, with the cryptography open source on GitHub, frequently independently audited, and a plain vendor statement that it has no access to encryption keys and uses no backdoors. Device fingerprint verification and ID Shield checks against the customer's own identity provider are documented. I hold back one point because guest links with passwords are the only joining control evidenced — I found no public information on per-meeting access policies or admission mechanics such as a lobby.

Google Meet

The evidence never says how a person actually joins a Meet: no browser joining, no guest links, no dial-in numbers, no captions, no accessibility statement — the entire reach question is silent. The only adjacent items are separately sold add-ons, a business telephony product and an AI add-on mentioning real-time speech translation, which is not dial-in or captions.

Wire

Guest links with passwords let outsiders join without an account, and a free tier lets anyone test the path in. Beyond that I found no public information on browser joining without an install, telephone dial-in, live captions, keyboard or screen-reader operation, or behaviour on low bandwidth — nothing that would let me say everyone who needs to join can.

Google Meet

Recording exists from Standard upward and Plus adds attendance tracking, but the evidence never says who may record, whether participants are told, or where recordings are stored — pooled Drive allowances of 30 GB to 5 TB per user are stated and never tied to recordings. Retention appears only as Vault archival tooling and an Enterprise 'Assured Controls' add-on; no recording-specific retention rule, access log, or consent prompt, and no statement that attendance tracking can be switched off.

Wire

I found no public information on meeting recording at all — not who may record, not whether participants are told, not where a recording is stored or how long it lives. The deletion rules published concern messages deleted after delivery, logs kept at most 90 days, usage data 365 days and payment data 12 months after termination; none of them is a recording rule, and the admin console evidences restrictions on file sharing and guest links but no organisation-wide recording policy.

Google Meet

Room-system support is real (the Meet Hardware add-on) and directory adjacency exists as Secure LDAP on Plus and Cloud Identity Premium on Enterprise. But for a meeting product sold inside a suite, no calendar integration is ever stated, there is no API, SCIM, webhook or SDK in evidence, and no self-hosted or private-cloud option of any kind — cloud-only.

Wire

SAML single sign-on, SCIM provisioning, webhooks via the GitHub app, and an open-source SDK with documentation and sample apps are all evidenced, alongside both on-premises and private-cloud deployment with MLS protection stated for every feature in cloud and on-premises versions. I stop short of the top because the marketplace and TypeScript SDK are announced for late 2025 rather than shipped, and I found no public information on calendar integration or room-system support.

Google Meet

The vendor is Google LLC of Mountain View; the evidence's own sovereignty attributes mark legal entity, data residency and subprocessor exposure as unknown on the vendor's pages, media routing is unstated, and the subprocessor list is 'affiliates and other trusted businesses' — unnamed. The single EU fact is a controller statement (Google Ireland Limited for EEA users, US entity for UK users), which does not amount to residency or a safeguard; this buyer weighs that heavily, so it sits near the floor.

Wire

Servers are stated to be in Germany and Ireland and a complete subprocessor list is published with locations and transfer safeguards named, which is more than most. But the contracting entity is Wire Swiss GmbH in Zug — outside the EU — with only an Article 27 representative designated, the security pages never name the hosting infrastructure, and the privacy policy lists AWS as hosting subprocessor while the security pages leave the provider unnamed, so the captured pages give different pictures on who carries the traffic; exposure through US-parented support and analytics subprocessors cannot be ruled out from the pages alone.

Google Meet

Per-user prices, billing periods, discounts and participant caps are public — €4.76 to €14.77 per user with 100/150/500/1000 limits — but dial-in is not merely unpriced, it is unmentioned, and Enterprise is 'Let's talk', so every organisation above Plus's 300-user cap is pushed into a sales conversation. Storage allowances are stated per plan though never linked to recordings, add-ons carry no prices, and VAT treatment is nowhere; an invoice is computable only up to 300 users.

Wire

€7.45 per person/month with annual payment and €8.94 per person/month with monthly payment are published, with the free tier's five-person cap, the paid tier's 100-person cap and a 150-participant conference limit stated. But above 100 people the price is simply "Custom", the support tiers marked "Optional" carry no figures, and I found no public information on dial-in rates, recording storage allowances, minimum term or VAT treatment — so the annual invoice for a real organisation cannot be computed from public pages.