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Cisco Jabber vs Skype for Business comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Jabber
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Unified Communications (7th)
Skype for Business
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Virtual Meetings (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Jabber and Skype for Business aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Cisco Jabber is designed for Unified Communications and holds a mindshare of 3.3%, down 8.6% compared to last year.
Skype for Business, on the other hand, focuses on Virtual Meetings, holds 4.8% mindshare, down 11.8% since last year.
Unified Communications Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Jabber3.3%
Cisco Unified Communications10.2%
3CX Live Chat7.7%
Other78.8%
Unified Communications
Virtual Meetings Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Skype for Business4.8%
Zoom Workplace Business8.6%
Webex6.4%
Other80.2%
Virtual Meetings
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer912129 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Manager at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Stable, easy to set up, and works fine
Everyone in our company uses Cisco Jabber for phone calls and internal chat. We have around 1,000 users. For features like video conferences, schedules, and presentations, we use Microsoft Teams.  It works fine feature-wise. The Cisco Jabber features that we use work okay. There are issues in…
reviewer1854369 - PeerSpot reviewer
Executive at a government with 201-500 employees
Relying on dependable communication features for efficient collaboration
I work with Microsoft Exchange. We use Microsoft Azure, though I am not involved with the back-end operations. I work with Microsoft Exchange and ServiceNow for the service desk. I do not work with Cloud Observability or Automation Engine. We use Microsoft Copilot with Teams. We do not use Microsoft Security Copilot as it is not cloud-based. We have moved from Skype for Business to Teams recently, though some of us still use Skype for Business because it is convenient. Skype for Business is particularly useful for remoting onto people's devices. I prefer Skype for Business over Teams for screen sharing. Sometimes there are compatibility issues when running Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business together. Phone calls in Teams might ring and then go silent, or the microphone might not detect calls from either application. I rate Skype for Business a 9 out of 10 because it works effectively with minimal issues.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"This product makes my life much easier by shortening the distance between my boss and the rest of my team."
"It works fine feature-wise. The Cisco Jabber features that we use work okay."
"Everyone in our company uses Cisco Jabber for phone calls and internal chat."
"The power of the chat function is good in terms of sharing, pasting, and the like, as it is very full-featured."
"In summary, this product worked well for what I needed to do."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to talk with people in real-time, instead of sending texts."
"The most valuable feature for me is that it shows who is available and who is not, as well as what their current status is."
"The ability to mute everyone else is pretty useful when there is a large audience."
"People are now able to virtually collaborate with their staff and have a conference call."
"The most valuable features are the history tracking which allows us to see who participated and who didn't in the meetings as well as the integration with Outlook."
"The public telephony feature reduces hard phone costs and RGS is like a call centre feature."
"I like the fact that it opens up your video conferencing, and, in many cases, the audio at the same time."
"Skype for Business and video conferencing makes it easier to work from home."
"The most valuable feature of Skype for Business is that it has many other tools that you can be integrated with it. It makes the meetings more interactive."
"I use the chat feature to communicate with my staff, which is very helpful."
 

Cons

"Cisco Jabber is not a collaborative tool."
"I presume that very small businesses would have a tough time justifying the investment."
"I presume that very small businesses would have a tough time justifying the investment."
"There are issues in switching from one type of communication system to another. When I connect my wired earphone or Bluetooth earphone, Cisco Jabber doesn't switch automatically."
"There are issues in switching from one type of communication system to another. When I connect my wired earphone or Bluetooth earphone, Cisco Jabber doesn't switch automatically. There are some user experience issues that need to be fixed."
"Cisco Jabber is not a collaborative tool."
"I venture to say that 30% of the people using this solution at our company have had issues with stability, due to the volatility and crashes."
"There might be some invitation issues with Skype for Business."
"Microsoft Teams, as I see it now, is more useful than Skype for Business."
"The product is very heavy. It's very unmanageable."
"There are not many options, in terms of some other third-party integration."
"Skype for Business is not stable."
"I should be able to make a desktop phone call when I click a member of my Lync directory."
"We are looking for a more collaborative tool, not only in terms of virtual meetings but also for teams to collaborate, share a document, work together, and all those types of things."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"We negotiated a fair price with Microsoft. It is definitely worthwhile to negotiate with them for the best price for your solution."
"It may be slightly costly, but the features are awesome."
"A license is required to use the solution."
"The solution is priced fairly."
"The pricing is really good. It is quite affordable because it came with our Office 365. It is on a per-user license, which is nice. I quite like that they have made it very granular with all of their licensing."
"We are using the subscription-based version of Skype for Business. There is a free version of the solution."
"Previously, I did not use another solution."
"We had a license for every one of our users to use Skype for Business. The license we used was part of an overall Microsoft license package."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
10%
University
8%
Marketing Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Performing Arts
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise27
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Skype for Business?
Skype for Business is affordable and has decent pricing. The video quality is a bit lower than Teams or Zoom, but it remains a good solution overall.
What needs improvement with Skype for Business?
I cannot think of many ways in which Skype for Business could improve in general. It works fairly efficiently for our purposes with Skype for Business. There is one issue regarding the audio settin...
 

Also Known As

Jabber
Skype for Business Plan 1, Skype for Business Plan 2, Lync Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Odeabank, Eagle Investment Systems, Pella Corporation, The Republican National Convention, avodaqAG
EmpireCLS Worldwide Chauffeured Services,LA Fitness, MedcoEnergi International, Tampa General Hospital, and HopewellHoldings Limited.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, 3CX, Digium and others in Unified Communications. Updated: March 2026.
884,976 professionals have used our research since 2012.