Polycom RealPresence Clariti vs Skype for Business comparison

Polycom RealPresence Clariti vs. Skype for Business

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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

Polycom RealPresence Clariti

Ranking in Virtual Meetings

11th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Skype for Business

Ranking in Virtual Meetings

4th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Virtual Meetings category, the mindshare of Polycom RealPresence Clariti is 1.7%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Skype for Business is 12.5%, up from 8.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Virtual Meetings

Featured Reviews

Sreejith Thulasidas

Senior Engineer - UC - Service and Solutions Deployment at FVC

Provides video calling facilities with good video and audio clarity

Polycom RealPresence Clariti is very bad when moving towards the cloud. I think that Microsoft Teams and Zoom have already taken over the market. Polycom is currently looking into more end devices than server components and infrastructure. A cloud version would have been better, but that will not be feasible for Polycom now. It would have been helpful to have a cloud version during the migration stages, but now the time has gone. As a company, it's better for Polycom to look into the video conferencing devices rather than the infrastructure. Earlier, one of the advantages was that the infrastructure was very much open, and it was easy to integrate the tool with other platforms like Cisco. That is not the scenario now, and Polycom should concentrate on the endpoint hardware devices.

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Magdalena Teodorczuk

Senior at Krajowy Depozyt Papierów Wartosciowych S.A.

Offers great audio and video quality for virtual meetings

I like the instant messaging feature in the product since I prefer to use the chat functionalities provided by the solution. It is easy to integrate the product with some of the other solutions in the market. I rate the integration capabilities of the product a ten out of ten. The product's user interface is user-friendly. I use the product at a personal level, so I can't speak about the support it provides for the maintenance part. I rate the overall tool a ten out of ten.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It does a good job of integrating with other software."

"I find the ability to follow the calls, the call flow, the ability to look at the history, and more on the fault-finding tools to be valuable."

"It's on-prem, which is great."

"The most valuable feature is its integration with solutions like Zoom and Teams for endpoints. The picture quality is high, and the conference sessions are stable."

"Some proprietary Polycom features include speaker tracking, acoustic fencing, noise cancellation, active noise cancellation, and noise cancellation AI."

"The most valuable feature is how useful it has been for virtual meetings during the pandemic."

"The deployment is very fast."

"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."

"What is most valuable about Skype for Business is that almost everyone knows about it and almost everyone has it. You will be able to reach a large number of people."

"It's a good and stable product that fits my needs."

"The most valuable feature of Skype for Business is overall it is an okay solution."

"I have found Skype for Business to be stable."

"Video conferencing to hold virtual meetings helps to prevent employee displacement, where everyone can now enjoy the comfort of their own offices."

More Skype for Business pros

Cons

"Could have a wider range of use cases."

"The only issue we have is with some of the bridging stuff, particularly with respect to DTMF and outgoing calls."

"The most valuable feature is its integration with solutions like Zoom and Teams for endpoints. The picture quality is high, and the conference sessions are stable."

"The customer needs this platform to be a little bit more customized."

"Polycom RealPresence Clariti is very bad when moving towards the cloud."

"The solution has been discontinued by Microsoft."

"I am not familiar with all of the features or whether they can hold conferences because we use Zoom for that. But, in my opinion, if they can do something similar to what Zoom is doing, it will be a complete solution."

"The video conferencing quality can be improved."

"Skype for Business is good for the PCs with higher bandwidth, but an improvement is required for low bandwidth usage."

"The user experience during long sessions could be improved to avoid issues like intermittent disconnections or login failures."

"The technical support from Microsoft needs to be improved."

"The solution requires deployment on a Microsoft server and its performance is heavy because it consumes too many resources from the RAM."

"Sometimes Skype is slow, and we cannot use other elements of our devices while using the Skype solution."

More Skype for Business cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Polycom RealPresence Clariti is definitely more expensive than others in the market because of its high quality."

"Previously, I did not use another solution."

"The licensing is billed on a yearly basis."

"We purchased an open license."

"We negotiated a fair price with Microsoft. It is definitely worthwhile to negotiate with them for the best price for your 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."

"We have been able to save money by moving our conferencing solution to Skype for Business Conferencing."

"We are using the subscription-based version of Skype for Business. There is a free version of the solution."

"When it comes to the pricing of the solution, I rate it as a five out of ten. It falls somewhere in the middle between being cheap and expensive."

More Skype for Business pricing and cost advice

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860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Educational Organization

72%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Polycom RealPresence Clariti?

They are discontinuing the product and they are moving over to Pexip. The only issue we have is with some of the bridging stuff, particularly with respect to DTMF and outgoing calls. That's our big...

What is your primary use case for Polycom RealPresence Clariti?

We use it both nationally and internationally with our partners, however, it's used in a closed environment.

What advice do you have for others considering Polycom RealPresence Clariti?

I would recommend it, however, it depends on the environment. We have a lot of users but not a lot of usage, so the price model is really good for that environment. Overall, I would give it a nine ...

What do you like most about Skype for Business?

The solution’s video quality is fine.

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?

The video quality could be improved, possibly due to internet connection issues. However, there is no significant weakness in Skype for Business.

Cisco Meeting Server vs Polycom RealPresence Clariti

Comparisons

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Compared 26% of the time

Webex vs Skype for Business

Compared 26% of the time

TeamViewer vs Skype for Business

Compared 15% of the time

Zoom vs Skype for Business

Compared 14% of the time

GoToMeeting vs Skype for Business

Compared 7% of the time

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Product Reports

Virtual Meetings

Download Polycom RealPresence Clariti product report

Skype for Business

Download Skype for Business product report

Also Known As

RealPresence Clariti, Clariti

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

Overview

RealPresence Clariti is simple, powerful, cloud-ready collaboration infrastructure software for businesses of all sizes that connects people with HD voice, video, content and web collaboration.

Poly

Skype for Business offers features including presence, IM, voice and video calls, online meetings, conferencing, and telephony solutions that support enterprise-level collaboration requirements. Skype for Business Record meetings, share your screen, and annotate PowerPoint for real-time collaboration with up to 250 people and use whiteboard, polls, Q&A, and built-in IM during your business meetings to make them more productive. Skype for Business provides new client experience, Skype for Business Server provides several new features to improve manageability of on-premises servers and hybrid solutions. Skype for Business also supports the Lync client experience so that you can choose a phased upgrade approach to the new client experience for users. Skype for Business is also an integral part of Microsoft Office 365, providing PSTN Conferencing, Cloud PBX, PSTN Calling, and Skype Meeting Broadcast capabilities to Office 365 users.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

Baptist Health Corbin, North Carolina Central University

EmpireCLS Worldwide Chauffeured Services,LA Fitness, MedcoEnergi International, Tampa General Hospital, and HopewellHoldings Limited.

Polycom RealPresence Clariti vs. Skype for Business