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Skype for Business vs StarLeaf 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

Skype for Business
Ranking in Virtual Meetings
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
StarLeaf
Ranking in Virtual Meetings
46th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Virtual Meetings category, the mindshare of Skype for Business is 3.7%, down from 13.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarLeaf is 0.8%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Meetings Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Skype for Business3.7%
StarLeaf0.8%
Other95.5%
Virtual Meetings
 

Featured Reviews

MD
Assistant Information Technology Officer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Internal communication has become more efficient while mobile usage still needs improvement
The honest answer is that the product has not really evolved in some time. Microsoft has been pushing everyone towards Teams and Skype for Business has been in maintenance mode for a while. The mobile experience is also not great. Staff who try to use it on their phones find it less reliable than the desktop version, calls drop more, and the interface is clunky. For a modern workforce that expects everything to work on mobile, that is a gap. Despite the initial setup challenges and mobile issues, we have noticed positive outcomes for our organization since adopting Skype for Business. I rate Skype for Business seven out of ten. I think that Skype for Business has served us well for what it is. A government office has different expectations from a fast-moving private company. We value stability and security over the newest features. On those terms, Skype for Business has delivered.
JS
Solution Architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Easy to use for our clients and was easy to roll out
I would rate it a nine out of ten. It was really easy to roll it out to our users to implement it to an API. It was very seamless. I don't see any lack of features we need. For the purpose of connecting the client and agent, it works very well. I would like the ability to download or retrieve the call history through APIs. There is no way to download the recordings from the meetings because you can record the meeting. The only way to get the recording from the platform is to log in to my strategic portal and download it manually. There is no way to retrieve the link for downloading the recording through API. I would like to see that in the next release.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup is not overly difficult; it's pretty straightforward in general and the deployment is also quick and only takes a minute or so."
"A good option for virtual meetings."
"Skype for Business is good for meetings and instant messaging."
"The product helps me make international calls."
"The solution is stable and scalable."
"The calling features are the most valuable, especially now as we are working remotely because of this pandemic."
"The solution’s video quality is fine."
"The quality of the meetings is very good."
"The pros are that it's like a global leader. It has a translation project, which is very interesting and important for our users because the minority of them are not able to read and speak in English."
"It was really easy to roll it out to our users to implement it to an API."
 

Cons

"Conferencing and interoperability need to be improved."
"There might be some invitation issues with Skype for Business."
"We have found that there is a lag because it cannot integrate with the internal landline."
"This service could be improved by adding some missing features. It lacks integration with Teams, which is a feature I would like to see in the next release."
"Skype for Business is good for the PCs with higher bandwidth, but an improvement is required for low bandwidth usage."
"The video quality could be improved, possibly due to internet connection issues."
"The ease of configuration or the lack of decent tooling to pinpoint your problems is probably its biggest issue."
"Sometimes Skype is slow, and we cannot use other elements of our devices while using the Skype solution."
"We have had some problems with stability. A week ago, we had outaging but it has stablized."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It may be considered costly for certain markets, such as in India."
"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."
"We negotiated a fair price with Microsoft. It is definitely worthwhile to negotiate with them for the best price for your solution."
"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."
"It may be slightly costly, but the features are awesome."
"Previously, I did not use another 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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Construction Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Marketing Services Firm
10%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise28
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What is your primary use case for Skype for Business?
We use Skype for Business for internal meetings, conference calls, remoting into PCs, and phone calls. Our virtual meetings typically include two or three participants, keeping them small. It is ea...
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Also Known As

Skype for Business Plan 1, Skype for Business Plan 2, Lync Server
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

EmpireCLS Worldwide Chauffeured Services,LA Fitness, MedcoEnergi International, Tampa General Hospital, and HopewellHoldings Limited.
Kinderspaital Zurich, HGEM, Stronghold
Find out what your peers are saying about Zoom Video Communications, TeamViewer, Microsoft and others in Virtual Meetings. Updated: May 2026.
902,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.