11 Best Tools for Virtual Events and Webinars in 2026
What separates a virtual event tool from a plain video call
Virtual events and webinars are digital gatherings that let people connect, present, and collaborate remotely regardless of where they’re physically located. Virtual events span a wide range, from small team meetings and training sessions to large-scale conferences and trade shows. Webinars are a specific type of virtual event, typically built for informational or educational purposes, where a presenter shares insights, runs a workshop, or hosts a panel discussion for a remote audience.
What separates a dedicated virtual event or webinar platform from a plain video call is the layer built around the video: registration management, audience engagement tools like polls and Q&A, analytics on who attended and for how long, and often monetization or lead-generation features that a basic meeting tool doesn’t need. The eleven tools below cover that range, from general-purpose video conferencing that handles webinars well to platforms purpose-built for large-scale virtual events.
1. Zoom
Zoom is a widely used video conferencing platform that scales from small meetings to large webinars through its separate Zoom Webinars product. Built-in chat, polling, and automatic transcription for recorded sessions cover most of what a straightforward webinar needs without additional tooling. Zoom offers both free and paid tiers, and its familiarity, most attendees already have the app or know the browser join flow, remains one of its biggest practical advantages over less common platforms.
2. Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams goes beyond basic video conferencing into full team collaboration, but it also handles webinars and virtual events through its Teams Premium and webinar-specific features, including registration pages, attendee reporting, and screen sharing. For organizations already on Microsoft 365, Teams webinars come at little or no additional cost, which makes it a natural default for internal training sessions and partner webinars inside Microsoft-centric companies.
3. GoToWebinar
GoToWebinar, part of the GoTo product family (formerly LogMeIn), is a platform built specifically for webinars rather than general video conferencing. Registration management, attendee tracking, and integrations with popular CRM and marketing automation platforms are built in from the ground up, which shows in how much less configuration it takes to run a polished, professional webinar compared to repurposing a general meeting tool. It remains a strong default for marketing webinars, training sessions, and lead-generation events specifically.
4. Webex Events
Webex Events is Cisco’s platform for webinars and large-scale virtual events, built on the Socio events platform that Cisco acquired and folded into the Webex product family. It handles real-time registration tracking, attendee analytics, and the scalability needed for anything from a mid-size webinar to a large virtual conference or product launch. Because it sits inside Cisco’s Webex ecosystem, organizations already using Webex for meetings get a more unified administrative experience than mixing separate vendors for meetings and events.
5. RingCentral Events
RingCentral Events is the current name for what was Hopin’s events and sessions product; RingCentral acquired Hopin’s events business and folded it into its own communications platform. If you’ve seen “Hopin” recommended elsewhere, this is where that product lives today, the standalone Hopin brand for virtual events no longer exists independently. RingCentral Events retains the immersive, multi-stage virtual venue format Hopin was known for, alongside detailed analytics on attendee engagement and registration, now bundled with RingCentral’s broader calling and messaging platform.
6. Livestorm
Livestorm is a webinar and video conferencing platform built around automation and audience engagement. Interactive forms and surveys let you gather feedback or run quizzes during a live session, and built-in payment gateway integration lets you sell tickets or gate premium content directly through the platform. Its straightforward interface makes it a solid choice for marketers and educators who want automation (recurring webinars, automated follow-up emails) without a steep learning curve.
7. WebinarJam
WebinarJam is a dedicated webinar hosting platform aimed at businesses running live, recurring, or evergreen (automated, on-demand) webinars. Registration management, real-time attendee tracking, and CRM integrations are all built in, and the platform is particularly popular for lead-generation webinars and product launches where the sales funnel built around the webinar matters as much as the webinar itself.
8. StreamYard
StreamYard is a live streaming studio built for broadcasting to multiple destinations at once, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, and others, simultaneously, alongside standard webinar hosting. Its browser-based interface with on-screen branding, guest management, and screen sharing has made it a popular choice for podcasters, interview shows, and product demo streams that need to reach an audience across several platforms rather than one dedicated webinar page.
9. BigMarker
BigMarker is a webinar and virtual events platform that supports live, automated, and hybrid formats, including the ability to schedule automated webinars that play at set times or on-demand. Interactive elements (polls, surveys, downloadable handouts, and special offers) are built into the presentation layer directly, and its community-building features make it a reasonable fit for organizations running recurring event series rather than one-off webinars.
10. Demio
Demio is a webinar platform built around simplicity: live, automated, and hybrid webinars with a setup process that avoids the configuration overhead of more feature-dense platforms. Branding customization (logos, backgrounds, color schemes) keeps the experience consistent with a company’s identity without extra design work, which is part of why small to mid-sized businesses and educators lean on it for product demos and training sessions.
11. ON24
ON24 is an enterprise-grade webinar and virtual event platform built specifically for B2B marketing and demand generation at scale. Its interactive console format (video alongside resources, polls, and calls to action in one branded interface) is designed to maximize engagement and capture detailed intent data on individual attendees, which integrates directly into marketing automation and CRM platforms for lead scoring. ON24 tends to suit larger marketing teams running high-stakes product launches or recurring webinar series where detailed engagement analytics justify a more enterprise-priced platform than the simpler tools earlier on this list.
Choosing between them
Match the tool to the event’s actual purpose rather than picking whichever platform is most talked about. For internal training or team meetings that occasionally need a webinar format, Zoom or Microsoft Teams (especially if you’re already paying for one) avoids adding a new vendor for something you can already do. For marketing-driven, lead-generation webinars where registration data and CRM integration matter as much as the presentation, GoToWebinar, WebinarJam, or BigMarker are built specifically for that job.
For large-scale conferences or multi-session virtual events, Webex Events and RingCentral Events offer the scale and multi-stage format that a single-room webinar tool isn’t built for. For live streaming to multiple public platforms at once, StreamYard is purpose-built for that specific need in a way none of the others are. And for enterprise B2B marketing teams that need detailed attendee-level engagement data feeding directly into a broader demand-generation strategy, ON24’s console format and analytics depth are worth the higher price relative to the simpler tools on this list.
Feature comparison at a glance
| Tool | Best for | Free tier | Strongest feature |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zoom | Occasional webinars, internal meetings | Yes, limited | Familiarity, reliability |
| Microsoft Teams | Microsoft 365 organizations | Bundled with M365 | Native Office integration |
| GoToWebinar | Marketing and lead-gen webinars | Trial only | Registration and CRM integration |
| Webex Events | Large multi-session virtual conferences | Trial only | Scale, Cisco ecosystem |
| RingCentral Events | Immersive, multi-stage virtual venues | Trial only | Networking and expo-style formats |
| Livestorm | Automated, recurring webinars | Yes, limited | Automation and payment integration |
| WebinarJam | Evergreen, funnel-driven webinars | Trial only | Automated evergreen replays |
| StreamYard | Multi-platform live streaming | Yes, limited | Simultaneous multi-destination broadcast |
| BigMarker | Recurring event series, community building | Trial only | Automated and hybrid formats |
| Demio | Small to mid-size businesses wanting simplicity | Trial only | Fast setup, minimal configuration |
| ON24 | Enterprise B2B demand generation | No | Attendee-level engagement analytics |
Budget tiers: what to expect at each level
Pricing across this category shifts often enough that quoting specific numbers risks being wrong by the time you read this, so treat the tiers below as a rough map rather than a quote sheet, and confirm current pricing directly with each vendor before budgeting.
At the low end, Zoom, Microsoft Teams (if already licensed), StreamYard, and Livestorm all offer usable free tiers for small, occasional webinars, adequate for testing whether a webinar format works for your audience before committing budget. The mid tier, GoToWebinar, WebinarJam, Demio, and BigMarker, is built around paid business plans from the start, typically priced per host or per attendee-capacity tier, and justified once webinars become a regular part of your marketing or training calendar. The enterprise tier, Webex Events, RingCentral Events for large-scale formats, and ON24 for engagement-heavy B2B marketing, involves custom or considerably higher pricing that only makes sense once webinar and virtual event volume, and the revenue or training value attached to it, justifies the investment.
Security and privacy considerations
Virtual event platforms handle attendee registration data, and in some cases session recordings and chat transcripts, which makes basic security hygiene worth checking before you commit to a platform for anything beyond a low-stakes internal meeting. Confirm whether the platform supports meeting passwords and waiting rooms to prevent uninvited access, check what the vendor’s data retention policy says about how long registration and attendee data is kept after an event ends, and if you’re collecting attendee data from audiences in the EU or other regions with data protection regulations, confirm the vendor’s compliance posture (GDPR, CCPA, or equivalent) before you start collecting registrations.
For platforms integrated with a CRM or marketing automation tool, also check what data actually flows into that integration by default, some platforms sync full attendee engagement data (time watched, questions asked, poll responses) automatically, which is valuable for lead scoring but worth disclosing clearly in your event’s registration and privacy messaging.
A note on platform stability
The virtual events category has consolidated significantly since the surge in remote-event demand a few years ago. Hopin, once one of the best-funded and most talked-about platforms in this space, no longer exists as an independent product, its events business is now RingCentral Events. BlueJeans, Verizon’s video conferencing platform, was shut down entirely in March 2024 after Verizon decided not to continue investing in it. Neither of those outcomes was predictable from the outside a year or two before they happened.
The practical takeaway: before committing to a platform for a recurring, business-critical webinar series, check how actively it’s being updated, whether the company has had recent funding or ownership changes, and whether your account data and past recordings would be portable if you needed to switch. None of that guarantees stability, but it reduces the chance of building a workflow around a tool that disappears with little warning.
Running the event, not just picking the platform
Choosing the right tool solves maybe half the problem; the other half is running the event well once the platform is set up, and the same handful of mistakes show up across nearly every platform on this list regardless of which one you pick. Attendee drop-off is highest in the first three minutes, a webinar that opens with slow, unstructured small talk while people are still joining loses a meaningful share of the audience before the actual content starts. Open with something concrete in the first sixty seconds instead, and hold true small talk for after the recording indicator is on and the core content has begun.
Engagement features, polls, Q&A, chat, only work if someone is actively monitoring and responding to them in real time; a presenter focused entirely on their slides while a producer or co-host handles questions and polls consistently outperforms a solo presenter trying to do both at once. And for any webinar you plan to reuse or repurpose, record from the start rather than relying on the platform’s auto-record default, a surprising number of avoidable “we lost the recording” problems come from an auto-record setting that didn’t apply the way the host assumed it would.
Registration and follow-up: where most of the actual value lives
For marketing-driven webinars specifically, the platform choice matters less than what happens before and after the live session. A registration page that asks for too much information upfront depresses signups measurably, keep the form to name, email, and at most one or two qualifying questions unless you have a specific reason to ask for more. A reminder sequence, typically one email a day or two before, one an hour before, meaningfully improves live attendance rates compared to a single confirmation email sent at signup and never followed up.
After the event, the platforms with strong analytics (ON24, GoToWebinar, BigMarker) let you segment follow-up by actual engagement, attendees who stayed the full session and answered polls get a different follow-up than no-shows or early drop-offs. That segmentation, more than any single feature of the platform itself, is usually what separates a webinar program that reliably generates qualified leads from one that generates a large registration list and little else.
FAQ
What happened to Hopin?
Hopin’s events and sessions products were acquired by RingCentral and are now sold as RingCentral Events. The standalone Hopin brand no longer operates independently; any current reference to “Hopin” for virtual events should be understood as RingCentral Events today.
Is BlueJeans still available?
No. Verizon shut down BlueJeans entirely in March 2024, after announcing the discontinuation in August 2023. It should not appear on any current list of active webinar or video conferencing tools; if you’re evaluating an older roundup that recommends it, treat that as a sign the list needs updating.
What’s the difference between a webinar tool and a general video conferencing tool?
General tools like Zoom and Microsoft Teams handle webinars reasonably well through dedicated webinar modes, and are a sensible default if you already pay for them. Purpose-built webinar platforms like GoToWebinar, WebinarJam, and BigMarker add deeper registration management, marketing integrations, and attendee analytics specifically designed around lead generation and audience engagement, which matter more for marketing-driven events than for internal meetings.
Which platform is best for a large, multi-session virtual conference?
Webex Events and RingCentral Events are both built for multi-stage, multi-session virtual event formats rather than a single webinar room, making them the stronger fit for anything resembling a full virtual conference or trade show rather than a single presentation.
Do I need a paid plan to run a webinar?
Most platforms on this list offer some free tier or trial, though features like registration management, attendee limits above a small number, and integrations are typically gated behind paid plans. Zoom and Microsoft Teams have the most usable free tiers for occasional, small-scale webinars; dedicated platforms like GoToWebinar and ON24 are built around paid business use from the start.
How far in advance should a webinar be promoted?
Two to three weeks of promotion generally produces the best registration-to-attendance ratio for a standalone webinar, long enough to reach an audience across multiple touchpoints (email, social, partner promotion) without registrants forgetting they signed up by the time the event happens. Shorter windows work for audiences that already know and trust the host closely; longer windows tend to see registration decay, where people sign up early and then simply forget, dragging down live attendance rates even though the registration count looks strong.
Should a webinar always be recorded and offered on-demand afterward?
For most business webinars, yes, on-demand availability typically generates a meaningful share of total views beyond the live session, since a fixed live time will always exclude some of the intended audience regardless of how well it’s scheduled. The exception is genuinely time-sensitive content, a live product launch Q&A or a market update tied to a specific date, where the value is partly in the live, synchronous nature of the event itself, and an on-demand replay carries less weight than it would for evergreen educational content.
What’s the biggest technical failure point during a live webinar?
Presenter-side internet reliability, more often than the platform itself. A wired connection rather than WiFi, a closed browser tab count kept low, and a co-host on standby who can take over the screen share if the primary presenter’s connection drops all matter more to a smooth session than which platform from this list you’ve chosen. Most of the platforms above are reliable enough that the presenter’s own setup, not the software, is the more common point of failure in practice.
Is it worth running a full technical rehearsal before an important webinar?
Yes, for anything beyond a routine internal session. A rehearsal on the actual platform, with the actual presenter’s connection and hardware, catches problems a checklist alone won’t, screen-share permissions that need re-granting, a slide deck that renders oddly on the platform’s specific display format, or a co-host who hasn’t used the platform’s Q&A moderation tools before. Thirty minutes of rehearsal the day before consistently prevents the visible, audience-facing failures that are hardest to recover from once a live session has started.
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