Prime 6 Google Advised Jamboard Options & Extra

Prime 6 Google Advised Jamboard Options & Extra


Google introduced final 12 months that help for Jamboard gadgets and apps will finish as of Oct. 1, 2024. Google Jamboard delivers easy-to-use collaborative drawing capabilities to individuals who use Google Workspace by a mixture of Jamboard apps and a Jamboard machine. The Jamboard apps can be utilized with out shopping for a Jamboard machine and work on the net, iOS, iPadOS, and Android gadgets and in Google Meet.

Individuals who use Jamboard gadgets or apps might want to search options. For {hardware} choices, Google’s announcement beneficial both the Sequence One Board 65 (priced round $9,000) or the Sequence One Desk 27 (priced round $2,000), each by Avocor.

Three software program options — FigJam by Figma, Lucidspark by Lucid Software program, and Miro — have been built-in to work with Sequence One gadgets, and import choices for Jamboard content material can be found.

Prime Jamboard opponents and options: Comparability desk

Individuals who use the Jamboard apps, unbiased of the Jamboard machine, might take into account a variety of software program options. The next six choices all help visible collaboration and would possibly function appropriate replacements for Jamboard.

FigJam by Figma: Greatest for pleasant design

FigJam logo.
Picture: FigJam

Figma, a collaborative interface design software firm, launched FigJam (Determine A) in 2021. FigJam helps drawing instruments, shapes, stickers, notes, textual content, connectors, and stamps, together with part and desk administration options. You might also import photos or insert hyperlinks to net assets, together with shared Google Drive information. Cursor chat permits an ephemeral dialog with collaborators that disappears once you exit the mode, whereas the remark system permits typical feedback on content material anyplace on the board. FigJam provides a couple of extra options than Jamboard, delivered with a cleanly designed consumer interface, as you would possibly anticipate. Included with these is FigJam AI, a brand new collaboration device that helps groups brainstorm with AI-generated strategies, text-to-image capabilities, and automations.

Determine A

Screenshot showing the interface of a new, blank FigJam board on a Chromebook.
Determine A: Screenshot exhibiting the interface of a brand new, clean FigJam board on a Chromebook. Picture: Andy Wolber/TechRepublic

Figma’s possession deserves point out since Adobe, a inventive content material big, introduced an settlement to amass Figma in September 2022; nevertheless, the deal was terminated in December 2023. Whereas possession doesn’t straight have an effect on product options, the truth that Figma as soon as sought to merge with a bigger firm might sign a long run potential for acquisition.

Execs Cons
FigJam app is offered on the net (and Google
Workspace Market) and iPad.
No devoted FigJam iPhone or Android app.
Clear design. No offline mode.
Extra options than Google Jamboard.
Free version is offered to college students and educators.

Pricing

Figma provides 4 FigJam pricing plans: Starter, Skilled, Group, and Enterprise.

  • Starter, which is free and allows you to create as much as three Figma and three FigJam information, with limitless private information and limitless collaborators, amongst different options.
  • Skilled, $5 per full seat per 30 days. Consists of all Starter options and provides limitless FigJam information, open periods, password protections, voting, and extra. College students and educators might entry this version without spending a dime.
  • Group, $5 per full seat per 30 days. Consists of all Profesional options plus customized colours and templates, centralized administration, centralized content material administration, and extra.
  • Enterprise, $5 per full seat per 30 days. Consists of all Group options, plus devoted workspaces, visitor entry controls, together with many different consumer administration and security measures.

Miro: Greatest for enterprise integrations

Miro logo.
Picture: Miro

Miro (Determine B), previously often called RealtimeBoard, offers a sturdy set of options all centered round visible collaboration. Normal drawing instruments can be found to attract, add shapes (together with flowchart and Unified Modeling Language symbols), sticky notes, and textual content, together with many templates. Miro additionally permits you to add an enormous number of content material varieties, together with photos, spreadsheets, tables, kanban, code blocks, charts, diagrams, and extra. Timer, voting, chat, video chat, and notes allow you to collaborate with others in numerous methods in your board content material, whereas the brand new “Create with AI” function generates concepts from a immediate or objects on a board.

Determine B

Screenshot showing the interface of a new, blank Miro board on a Chromebook.
Determine B: Screenshot exhibiting the interface of a brand new, clean Miro board on a Chromebook. Picture: Andy Wolber/TechRepublic

Miro permits you to current your board to different individuals in a number of methods. The Talktrack function permits you to file a video together with your webcam (inset in a circle on the display screen) as you navigate and focus on the board. The ensuing video is saved and could also be shared. Alternatively, it’s possible you’ll current both all the board, which hides many menus to emphasise your content material; or current frames, which lets you outline and navigate chosen sections of content material so as. Enterprise and Enterprise editions provide entry to facilitation instruments to help actions akin to voting and including sticky notes or reactions.

Execs Cons
Miro app is offered on the net (and
Google Workspace Market), macOS,
Home windows, iPhone, iPad and Android.
No offline mode.
Very full-featured.
Various sorts of content material may be added.
Helpful number of presentation choices.

Pricing

Miro provides 4 pricing plans for skilled use: Free, Starter, Enterprise, and Enterprise.

  • Free, which incorporates one workspace with three editable boards, 5 Talktracks, entry to templates, and help for integrations.
  • Starter, $8 per member per 30 days, paid yearly. This plan provides limitless boards, high-resolution exports, collaboration with limitless guests on public boards, limitless Talktracks, limitless undertaking folders, Non-public Mode sticky notes, model historical past, assembly options (e.g., timers, voting, and video chat), and personal boards.
  • Enterprise, $16 per member per 30 days paid yearly. This plan contains all Starter options, plus limitless boards for each workforce and consumer, safe collaboration with limitless friends on non-public and workforce boards, superior form entry, enhanced assembly options (e.g., breakouts and voting), and extra.
  • Enterprise, which requires contacting gross sales for pricing. This plan contains all Enterprise options plus added safety, compliance, administration, and reporting capabilities, together with premium help.

College students, educators, and non-profits might entry totally different Miro pricing plans.

  • Educator plans are designed for workers members and college students of academic institutes. For educators, the plan is legitimate indefinitely, however for college students they’re legitimate for 2 years. They arrive with limitless energetic boards, board viewers, and commenters, coaching and discussion board assets, and extra.
  • Nonprofits can get a 30% low cost on paid Miros plans.

SEE: How you can use Miro as your whiteboard in a digital assembly

Lucidspark by Lucid Software program: Greatest for experimental AI

Lucidspark logo.
Picture: Lucidspark

Lucidspark (Determine C) offers a board on which you’ll draw and add photos, shapes, sticky notes, textual content, and contours. The feedback and process system lets board collaborators not solely touch upon particular board content material but additionally assign work to a colleague. To help rationalization, it’s possible you’ll outline body areas and designate paths in order to indicate sections of the board in sequence. Visible actions templates help numerous sorts of sorting, ranking, and board engagement, together with further timer and voting instruments.

Determine C

Screenshot showing the interface of a new, blank Lucidspark board on a Chromebook.
Determine C: Screenshot exhibiting the interface of a brand new, clean Lucidspark board on a Chromebook. Picture: Andy Wolber/TechRepublic

Lucidspark additionally provides menu customization and an experimental AI function. Customise the left-side on-screen menu with a Instrument pinning function to indicate solely the choices you choose. For instance, when you hardly ever want Jira integration, it’s possible you’ll unpin that possibility and it’ll not show on-screen, though you should still entry it from the Extra menu. And a Collaborative AI possibility generates concepts from an entered immediate. For instance, a immediate of “Greatest options of Lucidspark” created a 3Ă—3 set of sticky notes, every crammed with two or three phrases describing options akin to “Built-in Video Chat,” “Seamless Integrations,” and “Presentation mode.”

Execs Cons
Lucidspark app is offered on the net (and Google Workspace Market) and Android. Crew or Enterprise version accounts are required to make use of cellular app on iOS or iPadOS.
Customizable menu for quick entry to most-used choices.
Collaborative AI to generate concepts.
Important variety of supported app integrations.

Pricing

There are 4 Lucidspark plans: Free, Particular person, Crew, and Enterprise.

  • Free, which incorporates three editable boards, limitless shapes, drawing, emoji reactions, commenting, presentation mode, fundamental visible actions to assemble suggestions and mixture outcomes, fundamental collaborative AI, and different options.
  • Particular person, $7.95 per consumer per 30 days billed yearly ($95.40/yearly per consumer). This plan provides limitless editable boards, 1 GB of storage, premium visible actions to assemble suggestions, and mixture outcomes, and extra.
  • Crew, three workforce consumer licenses for $27 per 30 days billed yearly ($324/yearly for the three licenses, which is $108/consumer per 12 months). This plan provides superior controls for visible actions, chat, revision historical past and versioning, voting, a timer and facilitator instruments, contact display screen whiteboards, developer platform, and extra.
  • Enterprise licenses require contacting gross sales. This plan provides entry to Lucidchart for diagramming and provides Crew folders, Common Canvas, many app integrations, and entry to numerous consumer administration and security measures.

Educators might entry a variant of the Crew plan without spending a dime; this offers academics and college students entry to the cellular app and plenty of Crew options at no cost. An non-obligatory improve to a paid workforce plan for training provides centralized account administration, audit logs, and entry to precedence help.

Microsoft Whiteboard logo.
Picture: Microsoft Whiteboard

Microsoft Whiteboard: Greatest without spending a dime use

Microsoft Whiteboard (Determine D) is free, however it does require a Microsoft account to view, create, or collaborate on boards; subsequently, this feature might take advantage of sense for people or organizations who already use different Microsoft companies, akin to Microsoft 365.

Determine D

Screenshot showing the interface of a new, blank Microsoft Whiteboard board on a Chromebook.
Determine D: Screenshot exhibiting the interface of a brand new, clean Microsoft Whiteboard board on a Chromebook. Picture: Andy Wolber/TechRepublic

Microsoft Whiteboard provides an ordinary set of instruments that features a pen, highlighter, ruler, notes, emoji-style reactions, textual content and shapes. You might also add photos to a board. Plus, Microsoft Whiteboard provides a lot of templates for all kinds of brainstorming, planning, assembly, and studying actions. Chances are you’ll customise the board background shade and choose from a set of 9 background grid designs. And there’s an included timer. Share the hyperlink to offer collaborators entry to all of those instruments, too.

Execs Cons
Microsoft Whiteboard is offered on the net,
iPhone, iPad and Android, in addition to for
Microsoft Floor Hub and Microsoft Groups Rooms gadgets.
Not accessible within the Google Workspace Market.
Free. Should sign up with a Microsoft account.
Important number of templates for enterprise makes use of,
akin to brainstorming, undertaking planning and assembly actions.
No offline mode.
Targeted set of instruments.

Pricing

Microsoft Whiteboard is free, though you have to sign up with a Microsoft account to make use of it. A Microsoft account could also be obtained without spending a dime.

Zoom Whiteboard: Greatest for Zoom conferences

Zoom Whiteboard logo.
Picture: Zoom Whiteboard

The Zoom conferencing platform provides Zoom Whiteboard (Determine E), which can be used both with an internet assembly or individually. For anybody with an present Zoom account, Zoom Whiteboard deserves consideration.

Determine E

Screenshot showing the interface of a new, blank Zoom Whiteboard board on a Chromebook.
Determine E: Screenshot exhibiting the interface of a brand new, clean Zoom Whiteboard board on a Chromebook. Picture: Andy Wolber/TechRepublic

Zoom Whiteboard provides a lot of templates for brainstorming, diagramming, assembly, training, or leisure; or it’s possible you’ll merely create a brand new clean board. The system contains instruments akin to pens, shapes, traces, textual content, sticky notes, and feedback. Chances are you’ll add photos and PDFs to your board or add a thoughts map, desk, kanban board, or playing cards. Particularly, playing cards allow you to assign duties and monitor each dates and process standing. Zoom boards additionally allow you to create a number of pages. As a presentation support, it’s possible you’ll add frames round your board content material, then set up and current the frames in sequence. The timer and laser pointer could also be helpful throughout displays or collaborations as properly.

Execs Cons
Obtainable as a part of Zoom on the net (and Google Workspace Market), macOS, Home windows, Linux, iPhone, iPad and Android. Zoom Whiteboard provides secondary performance to net conferences.
Massive variety of templates for enterprise makes use of, akin to brainstorming and diagramming. No offline mode
Assist for a number of pages inside a board.
Frames to order presentation sequence.

Pricing

Three Zoom Whiteboard editions can be found: Whiteboard Fundamental, Whiteboard, and Whiteboard Plus.

  • Whiteboard Fundamental, which is included with Zoom Office Fundamental and Zoom Office Professional, contains three concurrent editable boards owned and 25 MB of storage, together with all core drawing, annotation, picture, and collaboration options.
  • Whiteboard, $24.90 per consumer per 12 months, and could also be added to both the Zoom Office Fundamental or Zoom Office Professional plan. This plan provides limitless concurrent editable boards, customary options, and superior doc management. It’s also included in Zoom Office Enterprise, Zoom Office Enterprise Plus, and Zoom Office Enterprise.
  • Whiteboard Plus, $70 per consumer per 12 months and could also be added to both Zoom Office Fundamental or Zoom Office Professional plans, provides superior whiteboard options and help for customized and organizational templates. Additionally, Zoom Whiteboard Plus is included as a part of Zoom Rooms plans and Zoom Office Enterprise Plus.

SEE: How you can use the brand new Zoom Whiteboard for hybrid conferences

Apple Freeform: Greatest for Apple machine customers

Apple Freeform logo.
Picture: Apple Freeform

Freeform (Determine F), a visible collaboration device by Apple, is included with present gadgets that run iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. The app is free, though solely individuals who use Apple gadgets might use it. For instance, Freeform could be a superb possibility for a classroom the place a instructor and college students all use iPadOS or macOS gadgets, however wouldn’t be appropriate for a scenario the place collaborators would possibly use Home windows, ChromeOS, or Android gadgets.

Determine F

Screenshot showing the interface of a new, blank Freeform board on iPad.
Determine F: Screenshot exhibiting the interface of a brand new, clean Freeform board on iPad. Picture: Andy Wolber/TechRepublic

Freeform provides quite a few writing and drawing types, together with a pen, pencil, highlighter, crayon, ink, and watercolor choices. On gadgets that help an Apple pencil, it’s possible you’ll leverage the system’s built-in handwriting recognition system, Scribble, to transform pencil strokes into textual content. Freeform permits you to add notes, hyperlinks, shapes, and typed textual content. Chances are you’ll use a digital camera to seize a photograph or add a picture, video, audio file, or PDF to a board. Freeform works offline, so you should use it to seize concepts virtually anyplace. Freeform permits as much as 100 individuals to collaborate on a board, and it could be used with Messages or FaceTime.

Execs Cons
Obtainable on present iPhone, iPad and macOS gadgets. Obtainable solely on Apple gadgets.
Can create and work offline.
Works properly with Apple Pencil, Messages and FaceTime.
Wider vary of drawing device types (e.g., watercolor, ink
and crayon) in comparison with lots of the different options on this article.

Pricing

Freeform is offered as one of many default apps on all trendy Apple gadgets, together with iPhone, iPad, and macOS techniques.

Extra Jamboard options to contemplate

Past the six companies coated above, many different collaborative drawing choices exist. Google suggests Google Drawings or Google Slides would possibly meet some wants. Different companies which will advantage consideration embody Canva Whiteboard, Conceptboard, Excalidraw, Clarify Every little thing, Inko, Pear Deck, Pencil Areas, Sketchboard, or Whiteboard.chat.

Jamboard phase-out timeline: What you’ll want to do

  • Sept. 30, 2024: By this date, you have to have backed up any Jamboard machine occasion logs that you just need to preserve from the Admin console, as you’ll now not be capable to do that afterwards and occasion log information might be deleted.
  • Oct. 1, 2024: For those who haven’t already, you’ll want to begin backing up the Jam information you need to retain and migrating them to different functions. You can too save them as PDFs or PNG information.
    Additionally, you will now not be capable to create new or edit present Jam information on any platform, together with the net, iOS, and Android, whereas the 55-inch Jamboard machine will now not be a part of Meet conferences or save to the cloud.
  • Dec. 31, 2024: The Jamboard software might be wound down, so you’ll now not be capable to entry your Jam information, and they are going to be completely deleted.

Methodology

The primary three companies — FigJam by Figma, Miro, and Lucidspark by Lucid Software program — are included as a result of Google particularly recommends these as options to Google Jamboard. All three will provide some kind of import device to mean you can protect present Jamboard content material.

The remaining three choices have been chosen due to the widespread use of Microsoft, Zoom, and Apple instruments within the training neighborhood — a major consumer of Jamboard apps. For those who and your collaborators use Apple {hardware}, Freeform is sensible as an alternative choice to Jamboard. For those who and your collaborators have present Microsoft or Zoom accounts, then both of these respective companies would possibly serve you properly.

The writer signed and actively examined every of the companies for testing functions, and has actively used and coated Google Jamboard since its inception. Every of the screenshots was taken throughout this experimentation. We depend on vendor web sites for pricing.

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