Why Whereby Won Over Our Remote Team
I’ve spent years evaluating video conferencing tools—from a product manager’s seat, I’ve helped teams choose everything from Zoom to Google Meet to Teams. When my last fully distributed team did a tool bake-off, Whereby wasn’t even on the initial list. Someone threw it in as a “what about this one?” wildcard.
Three months later, it was the only video tool we were still using.
The reason is simple: Whereby solves the friction problem better than any tool I’ve tested. Buffer’s 2024 State of Remote Work report found that 32% of remote workers say “technical difficulties joining calls” is a top frustration. Whereby eliminates that entirely—guests click a link, grant camera permission, and they’re in. No account. No download. No “which app do I open?” panic five minutes before a client call.
What Makes Whereby Different
Most video tools try to be everything to everyone. Zoom has 50+ settings most teams never touch. Google Meet ties you into the Google ecosystem. Teams ties you into Microsoft. Whereby takes the opposite approach: it does the essentials and gets out of the way.
Browser-native by design. Whereby runs entirely in the browser using WebRTC. There’s no desktop app to install, no mobile app required (though one exists). This sounds like a small thing until you’re on a client call with someone who can’t figure out why Zoom won’t open. With Whereby, you send a link and they’re in 10 seconds later.
Permanent room links. Every Whereby room has a fixed URL. Your team standup room is always whereby.com/ourteam-standup. Client calls happen in whereby.com/client-room. You never have to generate a new link, forward a calendar invite, or find the right meeting code. The link just works, every time.
Embedded apps. This is where Whereby gets interesting. You can embed Miro boards, YouTube videos, Google Docs, and even custom apps directly in the meeting. Instead of screen-sharing a Miro board and having everyone pass control, you open the embedded Miro and everyone can edit simultaneously. For design reviews and brainstorming, this changes the dynamic entirely.
Setting Up Your Team’s Whereby Rooms
From a product perspective, the hardest part of adopting a new tool isn’t the features—it’s the setup pattern. Here’s how I recommend structuring your Whereby rooms:
Internal team rooms (one per team). Create a permanent room for each team’s daily standups and quick check-ins. Name it something obvious like acme-design-team. No waiting room, no lobby—people pop in and out as needed throughout the day.
Client and external rooms. Set up dedicated rooms for external calls with lobby mode enabled. The lobby acts as a virtual waiting room—the host admits people when they’re ready. This prevents the awkward “are we starting yet?” moment when you join a call and the client is already there.
Large meeting rooms. For all-hands or cross-company meetings, create a larger room with recording enabled by default. Whereby’s Pro plan handles up to 100 participants, which covers most remote companies below 500 employees.
I also recommend standardizing how you name rooms. In our last team, we used a simple convention: company-standup, team-[name], client-[name], and brainstorm-[topic]. Consistency means nobody has to ask “what’s the room link again?”
Key Features Remote Teams Actually Use
Whereby doesn’t have every feature under the sun, but the features it does have are the ones that matter for remote teams:
Screen sharing with annotation. Share your entire screen, a specific window, or just a browser tab. The annotation tool lets everyone draw, type, and stamp on the shared content. For design critiques or workflow mapping, this is faster and more natural than talking through changes verbally.
Breakout rooms. Whereby’s breakout rooms are simpler than Zoom’s but cover 90% of use cases. You can auto-assign or manually sort participants into groups, set a timer, and broadcast messages to all rooms. The interface is cleaner and faster to set up than most competitors.
Cloud recording with AI transcription. Pro and Business plans include cloud recording and automatic transcription. The transcript is searchable—you can search for “pricing decision” and jump straight to that part of the recording. For async teams spread across time zones, this is the single most valuable feature.
Waiting room / lobby. The lobby feature lets you control who enters and when. It’s essential for interviews, client calls, and any meeting where you need a moment to prepare before letting people in. You can customize the lobby message with your company logo and a welcome note.
Integrations. Whereby integrates with Google Calendar, Outlook, Slack, Miro, YouTube, and more. The Slack integration is particularly handy—type /whereby in any channel to spin up an instant meeting room and share the link.
When Whereby Isn’t the Right Fit
I like Whereby a lot, but it’s not for every team. From a product perspective, here are the cases where I’d recommend something else:
Enterprise-grade security and compliance. If you need SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA, or advanced SSO with full admin controls, Whereby’s Business plan covers the basics but isn’t as mature as Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Highly regulated industries should evaluate carefully.
Very large meetings (200+ people). Whereby caps at 100 participants on Pro. If you regularly run all-hands with 200+ people, you’ll need Zoom or another enterprise tool. That said, most remote teams under 100 employees never hit this limit.
Advanced webinar features. Whereby doesn’t do webinars. If you need registration pages, Q&A moderations, attendee reporting, or simulive events, use a dedicated webinar tool instead.
Heavy whiteboarding needs. The embedded Miro integration is solid, but if your whole workflow revolves around collaborative whiteboarding, you might prefer Miro’s native video feature or a tool like MURAL that’s built around the canvas.
For everyone else—especially small to mid-sized remote teams that value simplicity and speed—Whereby is worth a serious look.
Final Thoughts
The best video conferencing tool is the one that fades into the background. Whereby does that better than any tool I’ve used. No downloads, no accounts for guests, permanent links, and just enough features to run a productive meeting without the feature bloat.
From a product perspective, the trend is clear: teams are tired of tools that try to do everything. They want tools that do the essentials well, set up in minutes, and don’t require a training session for new people. Whereby hits that sweet spot.
Try it for a week. Create a room, send the link to a teammate, and see how fast you’re both in the call. That 10-second onboarding experience is the whole pitch—and for most remote teams, it’s enough.
