> Hangouts: Google account. Need to individually invite other Google accounts.
Hangouts (now Meet) is better geared towards GSuite orgs where you're already logged into Google since you have to be to access almost all of your other internal company/school resources, including gmail. It also solves the contacts problem since everyone will be in the company directory.
Ah-ha! Google Hangouts Meet is indeed the GSuite video conferencing solution, complemented by Google Hangouts Chat, the GSuite Slack competitor. Google Hangouts is "deprecated" but still alive, and with a plain-old gmail account I don't see an option to use Hangouts Chat nor Hangouts Meet, only Hangouts. As a user in a GSuite org, Chat and Meet exist, and plain-old Hangouts text messages are mirrored in Chat, but the video conferencing is still weirdly separate from Meet.
It's weirdly hidden but if you go to meet.google.com and make a meeting, others just need the url to join, no faffing about with connecting to other users in gmail. It needs a corporate gmail account to use though.
I'm not sure is deprecated.
If you're free (paid by your own data), Hangout is the 'consumer' version.
Meet is the paid platform, with more business oriented features.
Hangouts (now Meet) is better geared towards GSuite orgs where you're already logged into Google since you have to be to access almost all of your other internal company/school resources, including gmail. It also solves the contacts problem since everyone will be in the company directory.