Best free and paid webinar software in 2025

May 22, 2025

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Webinars offer an excellent way to engage large audiences through interactive sessions and on-demand video content. However, capturing your audience's attention and making your virtual events memorable starts with selecting the right webinar software.

With so many webinar platforms available, how can you determine which one is the best fit for your team?

Whether you're a small business owner seeking a Zoom alternative or part of a large enterprise hosting major online events, check our list of top free and paid webinar software in 2025.

What webinar software features are important to host a successful event?

No matter whether you use paid or free software for webinars, it is important to test it thoroughly before the event to ensure that the participants will be able to use it effortlessly and will not experience any issues during your webinar.

Top free webinar software

Virola

Virola Messenger is a self-hosted collaboration tool with a comprehensive video conferencing feature. It's completely free for 10 online users. I.e., if you want to run webinars for a small audience, you can use Virola for free.

To start a webinar in Virola Messenger, you need to do the following:

• Create a group chat room
• Activate an option to allow users to add themselves to the chat room and an option to add new users automatically
• Send your webinar participants a self-registration link
• To start listening, talking, and streaming, you just need to activate the intercom and the respective options on it

Meeting recording can be enabled if necessary and later shared with the webinar participants. They will also have access to the chat history and can securely share files in the meeting room. Though Virola Messenger does not provide tools for lead generation and real-time conversation translation, it allows hosting secure meetings and running unlimited webinars.

Zoho Webinar

Zoho offers comprehensive webinar software for businesses of any size. The free version of Zoho Webinar allows up to 100 participants and a 60-minute meeting duration. It also supports an unlimited number of webinars, polls, screensharing for the webinar organizer, broadcasting messages, and Q&A. Though the free version of Zoho Webinar does not include live streaming or meeting recording features, it supports a basic set of features enough for internal communication and one-to-one meetings.

YouTube Live

You can stream your webinars for free with YouTube Live. After completing the webinar, it is automatically saved as a video on your YouTube Channel. You can edit the title, description, and use YouTube Analytics to check viewer engagement and retention.

To use YouTube Live, you need to have your YouTube Channel for live streaming and streaming software like OBS Studio (free) or StreamYard (browser-based, webinar-friendly, 7-day free trial available).

Facebook Live

On Facebook, you can host webinars from your personal profile, business profile, or Facebook Group. The simplest way to start streaming is through your browser from your webcam directly. If you need to share slides or screens, host multiple presenters, add branding overlays, and moderate live comments, you should use streaming software like OBS Studio or StreamYard.

Google Meet

To use Google Meet for webinars, both you and webinar participants should have Google accounts and connect to your webinar via them. You can use Google Meet to host internal company webinars, educational sessions (especially if using Google Classroom), workshops, or group training sessions.

During your webinars with Google Meet you can share your screen, chat with participants, share documents, and run presentations.

Top paid webinar software

GoTo Webinar

GoTo Webinar is a comprehensive video conferencing and webinar platform for hosting engaging and collaborative events. Unlike general meeting tools (like Zoom or Google Meet), GoTo Webinar is designed specifically for webinars, not just meetings. It includes registration forms, Q&A, polls, and automated emails. Depending on the payment plan, the software can handle up to 3000 participants.

Live polls, Q&A, handouts, and surveys help you interact with attendees and collect data. At the same time, attention tracking shows the level of your audience engagement. For registration, you can customize the landing page with your company logo and colors.

ON24

ON24 is a webinar and virtual event platform built for lead generation. It offers a comprehensive suite of branding and engagement tools, along with live global support and on-demand captioning, making it well-suited for hosting international events.

ON24 offers fully customizable virtual environments with drag-and-drop layout options and allows adding branded elements, resource libraries, surveys, Q&A, polls, and even clickable CTAs within the webinar interface. It also includes strong engagement features and provides advanced reporting and analytics. The payment plans are higher than those from Zoom and GoTo Webinar. ON24 is designed for enterprise budgets.

Zoom

Zoom is a familiar and widely used software for video conferencing, webinars, and collaboration. It's an all-purpose tool for efficient team collaboration, education, and online workshops. Since COVID-19, Zoom has been significantly improved to handle video and audio with thousands of participants.

For webinars, Zoom offers a separate paid add-on that is not included in the basic package. Among known disadvantages are a slightly dated interface, limited customizations, and a lack of lead generation features. Zoom will work great for large or small webinars with known audiences, company meetings, client training, and presentations with limited interactivity needs.

Livestorm

Livestorm is a web-based solution for hosting webinars, online meetings, and events. The platform is easy to use, highly customizable, and ideal for product demonstrations, training sessions, team meetings, and onboarding new employees. Its compatibility with leading marketing and CRM tools lets you track and nurture leads generated through webinars. Livestorm provides a minimalist design that feels intuitive for both hosts and attendees and offers a professional, branded look without technical complexity.

Livestorm is suitable for marketing teams running lead-generation webinars, product demos, and quick professional webinars with automation and analytics. However, for large internal meetings needing voice participation, it will not work well since some browsers may limit screen sharing or webcam/audio permissions, especially on mobile or corporate networks.

Webex

Backed by Cisco, Webex is known for robust security features, like end-to-end encryption, role-based access, and compliance. Webex is an enterprise webinar tool for large organizations that regularly host events with thousands of attendees. The platform can easily scale to support 10,000+ attendees per webinar or online meeting. At the same time, all features necessary for successful webinar management are available: hosts can control attendee audio/video, promote participants to panelists, and manage Q&A. Strong moderation and backstage options for live events help make webinars and online meetings smooth and engaging.

Webex is a great tool for large enterprises with strict security requirements, government, finance, healthcare, and regulated industries. However, for startups and social media businesses that require simplicity and marketing tools or highly branded events, Webex lacks the necessary features.