Google Hangouts vs Reach

Hangouts offers both an Android and iOS app so users can participate from nearly any mobile device in addition to his Desktop.

Any user can share his screen (or only a specific desktop or window) while still continuing an audio conversation.

Hangouts works with up to 10 participants using video out of the box or up to 15 if you are a business, government or school. It determines who is the primary speaker at any given time, and the camera view automatically switches to that user.

Hangouts can scale to become a videoconferencing solution for an entire company, since the software can run on nearly all platforms. In fact, Google itself uses Hangouts as its meeting room video conference software.

Hangouts is integrated with Gmail & Google+, does not require you to download desktop software, and all chats can take place directly in your browser, significantly reducing the barrier to entry for a new user.

Google offers all features of Hangouts completely free. There are business, education and government solutions that increase the participant count to for video calls to 15 and offers support.

Hangouts work on Android, iOS, Chrome OS, web and as a Chrome extension.

With Google+ “Hangouts on Air”, you can broadcast any hangout to an unlimited audience via your Goolge+ Profile or simply a generic YouTube link. Moreover, any Hangout on Air (public or private) is automatically saved as YouTube video that you can keep for private reference or use in any way that you would normally share a YouTube video. This allows you to record conversations without additional obtrusive software.

Allows for a fixed phone number, receiving and making calls. Calling US or Canada is free.

When chatting with people while trying to plan a meet up, the share map button can be extremely useful.

Ability to send a single message to multiple people without exposing their contact information to each other. Reach sends individual messages to the group rather than starts a group chat.

When sending a message to a group of people, Reach starts a private conversation in your Messages, Mail or WhatsApp apps respectively for each recipient

Improve workflow productivity by creating reusable recipient groups

Reach does not require the recipient to have Reach installed on their device. Instead it uses the existing messaging apps on the device to send the message to the recipient.

Prepare message templates which can be reused. Message templates can have recipients name variable, for example the template "hey {first name}!" will be populated with the recipients first name when the message is sent out

Reach integrates with Google Voice and allows to send free text messages in the U.S.A and low rates across the globe

Using Google Voice integration, Reach is able to send mass texts in a fully automated mode (without the need to press "Send" button for each message)