Last updated: March 20, 2026

Many development teams have relied on Zoom for years, but the platform’s resource overhead and feature complexity can feel excessive for daily standups, quick syncs, and lightweight collaborative sessions. Around offers a sped up alternative designed specifically for smaller, frequent video calls that don’t require Zoom’s full suite of enterprise features.

Table of Contents

• Understanding the Key Differences
• Common Migration Scenarios
• Integration Approaches for Development Teams
• Practical Migration Steps
• Handling Edge Cases
• Performance Considerations
• When to Reconsider

This guide covers the practical aspects of transitioning your remote team from Zoom to Around, including feature comparisons, API integration patterns, and migration strategies that minimize disruption.

Understanding the Key Differences

Zoom remains the industry standard for video conferencing, offering breakout rooms, recording storage, webinar capabilities, and extensive admin controls. Around focuses on a narrower use case: quick, frictionless video calls with minimal setup overhead.

For development teams conducting multiple short calls daily, Around’s unlimited meeting duration on free tier and faster startup times represent meaningful productivity improvements.

Common Migration Scenarios

Teams typically migrate to Around when they experience one or more of these pain points with Zoom:

• Meeting fatigue from heavy client applications — Zoom’s desktop app consumes significant RAM, which impacts development machine performance
• Overhead for simple calls — Creating accounts, scheduling meetings, and managing passwords for quick ad-hoc calls
• Battery drain on laptops — Zoom’s resource consumption shortens battery life during remote work days
• Cost concerns — Scaling Zoom licenses across large teams becomes expensive

Around is particularly well-suited for engineering teams where calls happen spontaneously throughout the day. When a developer needs to pull in a colleague for a quick code review or debugging session, the friction of starting a Zoom meeting adds up over dozens of interactions per week. Around’s persistent room concept — where a team’s meeting space is always available at the same URL — eliminates the scheduling and link-sharing overhead for internal calls.

Integration Approaches for Development Teams

Around provides fewer API endpoints than Zoom, but essential integrations remain available for automating meeting workflows.

Creating Meetings Programmatically

Around doesn’t expose a public REST API for meeting creation in the same way Zoom does. However, you can generate instant meeting links and embed them in your internal tools:

// Generate Around instant meeting link
function generateAroundLink() {
  // Around instant meetings use a consistent URL pattern
  const meetingId = Math.random().toString(36).substring(2, 10);
  return `https://around.co/${meetingId}`;
}

// Usage in a team bot
const meetingLink = generateAroundLink();
console.log(`New Around meeting: ${meetingLink}`);

For teams needing structured meeting creation, consider building a simple wrapper that stores meeting metadata in your own database:

# Simple meeting manager using Around links
from datetime import datetime
import uuid

class MeetingManager:
    def __init__(self):
        self.meetings = {}

    def create_meeting(self, title, host, scheduled_time=None):
        meeting_id = str(uuid.uuid4())[:8]
        link = f"https://around.co/{meeting_id}"

        self.meetings[meeting_id] = {
            'title': title,
            'host': host,
            'link': link,
            'scheduled': scheduled_time or datetime.now(),
            'platform': 'around'
        }

        return self.meetings[meeting_id]

    def get_meeting(self, meeting_id):
        return self.meetings.get(meeting_id)

# Example usage
manager = MeetingManager()
meeting = manager.create_meeting(
    title="Daily Standup",
    host="developer-1",
    scheduled_time="2026-03-20T09:00:00"
)
print(f"Join link: {meeting['link']}")

Embedding Around in Custom Tools

Around supports iframe embedding for in-browser participation, which enables integration into custom team dashboards:

<!-- Embed Around meeting in internal dashboard -->
<iframe
  src="https://around.co/YOUR-MEETING-ID"
  width="100%"
  height="600"
  allow="camera; microphone; fullscreen"
  style="border: none; border-radius: 8px;"
></iframe>

This approach works well for teams building internal collaboration portals where video calls need to happen alongside code reviews, task boards, or documentation.

Slack Integration

Around offers a native Slack integration that lets team members start a call directly from a Slack channel. After installing the Around Slack app, your team can use /around in any channel to generate an instant meeting link. This replaces the common pattern of pasting Zoom links into Slack messages and avoids the context switch of opening a separate Zoom scheduler.

For teams using Slack’s Huddles feature, Around serves as a complementary option when you need video with more stable screen sharing than Huddles provides.

Practical Migration Steps

Phase 1: Pilot with a Single Team

Start by migrating one development team that handles most of your ad-hoc calls. This team should:

1. Install the Around browser extension or desktop app
2. Replace Zoom links in Slack/Teams status with Around availability
3. Test screen sharing, audio quality, and participant limits
4. Document any workflow gaps during a two-week pilot

During the pilot, track metrics that matter for your team: call startup time, audio quality complaints, and how often the participant limit becomes a constraint. For most engineering teams with fewer than eight regular collaborators on any given call, the free tier accommodates typical usage without issue.

Phase 2: Update Integration Points

Review your existing tooling and update integration configurations:

# Example: Update Slack video call integration
# Before (Zoom)
video_call_service:
  provider: zoom
  default_link: "https://zoom.us/j/"

# After (Around)
video_call_service:
  provider: around
  default_link: "https://around.co/"

If your team uses calendar integrations, update Google Calendar or Outlook settings to default to Around for new events. Google Calendar supports custom video conferencing add-ons — Around provides a Calendar integration that automatically attaches an Around room link when you create events with video conferencing enabled.

Phase 3: Establish Usage Guidelines

Document when to use Around versus other tools:

• Use Around for: Daily standups, one-on-ones, quick technical discussions, pair programming sessions, ad-hoc troubleshooting calls
• Reserve Zoom/Meet for: Client calls, large team meetings, webinars, recordings requiring breakout rooms, calls with external participants who need advanced features

Publish these guidelines in your team wiki or internal documentation. Clear guidelines prevent the common situation where some team members default to Zoom out of habit while others use Around, creating fragmented workflows.

Handling Edge Cases

Several scenarios require consideration during migration:

External stakeholders: Clients or contractors without Around accounts can still join via browser without creating accounts. Share the meeting link directly rather than relying on calendar invites.

Recording needs: Around offers limited recording capabilities compared to Zoom’s cloud storage. If your team requires meeting recordings, either use Zoom for those specific calls or explore third-party screen recording tools. Loom and Grain both integrate well with lightweight meeting workflows when you need to capture and share call content asynchronously.

Network constraints: Around performs well on moderate bandwidth, but teams in regions with unstable connections may experience better reliability with Zoom’s adaptive bitrate technology. Teams in Southeast Asia or parts of Africa frequently report more consistent Zoom quality due to its broader CDN infrastructure.

Large group situations: If your engineering team grows beyond eight people for all-hands calls or architecture reviews, Around’s free tier becomes a constraint. For these cases, keeping Google Meet or Zoom as a secondary tool for larger gatherings works well while Around handles the majority of smaller calls.

Performance Considerations

For developers running resource-constrained environments, Around’s lighter client offers tangible benefits:

Zoom desktop app (idle): ~200-300 MB RAM
Around desktop app (idle): ~80-120 MB RAM

Zoom startup time (from icon click to call active): 8-15 seconds
Around startup time (from icon click to call active): 2-4 seconds

CPU usage during active call with screen share:
  Zoom: 15-25% on M1 MacBook Pro
  Around: 8-14% on M1 MacBook Pro

On older laptops or virtual machines, this difference affects system responsiveness during long workdays. Teams running developer environments with multiple Docker containers, local databases, and browser tabs often find that Around meaningfully reduces total memory pressure during the workday.

The combination of lower RAM usage and faster startup creates a cumulative productivity benefit that’s difficult to quantify precisely but immediately noticeable in daily workflows. When starting a video call takes two seconds instead of fifteen, teams use video more freely for quick questions that would otherwise become long Slack threads.

When to Reconsider

Around is not the right choice for every team. Consider staying with Zoom if:

• Your calls regularly include more than eight participants
• You rely on Zoom’s cloud recording and transcription features for compliance or training
• Your client relationships depend on the professional perception that Zoom carries in certain industries
• Your team uses Zoom Phone and wants a single unified communications platform

The strongest case for Around is specifically in engineering and product teams that run many small calls daily and don’t need the enterprise features that justify Zoom’s resource overhead. For those teams, the switch typically reduces friction, improves developer experience, and cuts software costs simultaneously.

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• Best Screen Sharing Tool for a Remote Tutoring Team of 6
• Best Hybrid Meeting Etiquette Guide Ensuring Remote
• Zoom Meeting Password Not Accepted by Participants Fix 2026 Built by theluckystrike — More at zovo.one

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is this article written for?

This article is written for developers, technical professionals, and power users who want practical guidance. Whether you are evaluating options or implementing a solution, the information here focuses on real-world applicability rather than theoretical overviews.

How current is the information in this article?

We update articles regularly to reflect the latest changes. However, tools and platforms evolve quickly. Always verify specific feature availability and pricing directly on the official website before making purchasing decisions.

Does Zoom offer a free tier?

Most major tools offer some form of free tier or trial period. Check Zoom’s current pricing page for the latest free tier details, as these change frequently. Free tiers typically have usage limits that work for evaluation but may not be sufficient for daily professional use.

How do I get my team to adopt a new tool?

Start with a small pilot group of willing early adopters. Let them use it for 2-3 weeks, then gather their honest feedback. Address concerns before rolling out to the full team. Forced adoption without buy-in almost always fails.

What is the learning curve like?

Most tools discussed here can be used productively within a few hours. Mastering advanced features takes 1-2 weeks of regular use. Focus on the 20% of features that cover 80% of your needs first, then explore advanced capabilities as specific needs arise.