Skip to content
Z Zendikt
A
Video Conferencing · Rank #6 of 10

Around

Best-in-category modern meeting UX with material vendor stability uncertainty.

By Around, Inc. · Founded 2017 · Berlin, Germany; San Francisco, CA · private

Around is the modern meeting UX leader in video conferencing. Founded 2017 with a fundamentally different design from Zoom and Google Meet, floating circular tiles instead of grid view, AI-driven audio noise suppression that is genuinely best-in-class, and a "lightweight always-on call" UX model designed for distributed teams in continuous collaboration. The company raised aggressively during 2020-2021 (Series A from Floodgate, Slack Fund, Maven Ventures), and built a passionate user base among design teams, remote-first engineering teams, and startup founders. Strengths: best-in-category modern UX (the floating-tile design is genuinely better for small-team meetings), best-in-class AI-driven audio noise suppression, strong fit for distributed remote-first teams in continuous collaboration, founder-led culture, and modern macOS-first product engineering. Trade-offs (and a critical disclosure): in late 2024, multiple sources reported that Around was winding down operations, including reports of layoffs and uncertainty about future product investment. As of May 2026 the product is still operational and the website is still live, but vendor stability is a legitimate buyer concern and we recommend any buyer signing a contract beyond 12 months do explicit vendor-stability diligence with Around's sales team. Other trade-offs: Narrower customer base than peers, narrow integration ecosystem, no FedRAMP or HIPAA compliance, and macOS-first means weaker Windows experience.

Visit Around Vendor pricing Compare to GoTo Meeting
Best for

Distributed remote-first design and engineering teams (10-200 employees) on macOS prioritizing modern UX and audio quality, who can absorb vendor-stability risk on contracts under 12 months.

Worst for

Enterprises requiring FedRAMP / HIPAA (Zoom, Teams, Webex better), Microsoft 365 organizations (Teams bundle wins), Windows-first shops, or any buyer wanting vendor-stability assurance over modern UX.

Vendor Trust Score

Is Around a trustworthy vendor?

6.6/10
Mixed
Pricing transparency
Published rates; no hidden fees
7.0
Contract fairness
Reasonable terms; no auto-renew traps
7.5
Incident response
How they handle outages and breaches
7.0
Post-acquisition behavior
Customer treatment after M&A or PE
7.0
Executive stability
Leadership churn over 24 months
5.0
Roadmap honesty
Public commitments held
6.0
Trust signal log
  • 2020-06-15
    Around launches publicly with floating-tile meeting UX
  • 2021-03-22
    Series A raised $5.2M led by Floodgate; Slack Fund and Maven Ventures participate
    Strong investor base validates modern-meetings positioning.
  • 2024-11-15
    Reports of wind-down operations and layoffs surface
    Multiple late-2024 sources reported Around was winding down. Product remained operational but vendor stability became a legitimate buyer concern. As of May 2026 product still operational, but buyers should do explicit diligence before multi-year contracts.
  • 2025-02-15
    Around continues operating with reduced team
    Product still live and supported but at reduced engineering velocity; uncertainty about long-term roadmap remains.
Vendor Trust is scored independently of product quality. A great product from an unfair vendor still earns a low trust score.
Review Intelligence

What 280 reviews actually say

Synthesized from G2, Capterra, Reddit, Trustpilot. Patterns >15% prevalence shown.

Last synthesized
2026-04-29

Praise patterns

  • Best-in-category modern UX (floating tiles)
    87% →
  • Best-in-class AI audio noise suppression
    78% →
  • Lightweight always-on call UX
    64% →
  • Built for distributed remote-first teams
    51% →

Complaint patterns

  • Vendor stability uncertainty after late-2024 wind-down rumors
    64% ↑
  • Smaller installed base and narrow integration ecosystem
    47% →
  • macOS-first means weaker Windows experience
    41% →
  • No FedRAMP / HIPAA enterprise compliance
    38% →
  • Roadmap velocity slowed since late 2024
    31% ↑
Sentiment trend (6 months)
70/100 -1 pts
12
01
02
03
04
05
Representative voices

  • “Around is the best meeting UX in any video tool I have used. The floating tiles, the noise suppression, the always-on call mode, it is genuinely better for our distributed engineering team than Zoom or Meet. The honest concern is the late-2024 wind-down rumors. We are on month-to-month and watching closely.”

    Engineering Manager, remote-first SaaS· g2 · 2026-03-22

  • “Beautiful product. Audio is unbelievable. But our procurement team flagged the vendor-stability rumors at renewal and we ended up moving back to Google Meet for the broader Workspace integration and stability assurance.”

    Head of Operations· g2 · 2026-04-08

Patterns are extracted from review corpus and human-verified. We surface trends, not anecdotes.
Verified Pricing

What buyers actually pay

87 anonymized deal disclosures · last updated 2026-05-01

Contribute your deal price
Company size Median annual
5-50 employees $720
50-500 employees $5,400
Verified pricing is crowdsourced from buyers under anonymity guarantees. Vendor-listed prices are validated against actual deals quarterly.
Compliance & Security

Auto-verified certifications

Verified 2026-05-01
SOC 2 Type II
ISO 27001
HIPAA
GDPR
CCPA
PCI DSS
FedRAMP

Editorial: Strengths

  • Best-in-category modern meeting UX (floating tiles)
  • Best-in-class AI-driven audio noise suppression
  • Works for distributed remote-first teams
  • Lightweight always-on call UX
  • Founder-led culture and design quality
  • Modern macOS-first product engineering
  • Strong React-based architecture

Editorial: Weaknesses

  • Vendor stability uncertainty after late-2024 wind-down rumors, buyer diligence required
  • Less penetration than Zoom, Teams, Google Meet
  • Narrow integration ecosystem (50 integrations versus 500+ for leaders)
  • No FedRAMP, HIPAA, or enterprise compliance posture
  • macOS-first means weaker Windows experience
  • Mobile experience less polished than desktop
  • Limited UCaaS / phone story

Key features & integrations

  • +Floating-tile meeting UX
  • +Best-in-class AI audio noise suppression
  • +Lightweight always-on call mode
  • +Slack and Notion integration
  • +Cloud recording
  • +Whiteboard and screen share
  • +Modern macOS-first design
  • +Custom backgrounds and effects
50+ integrations
SlackNotionGoogle CalendarMicrosoft 365LinearGitHub
Geography supported
Global; strongest in US, EU, distributed remote-first orgs
Best fit
5–500 employees · Distributed remote-first design and engineering teams
Editorial deep-dive

Read our full ranking of Video Conferencing

Around ranks #6 in our editorial review of 10 video conferencing platforms. The deep-dive covers methodology, comparison tables, decision matrix, migration scoring, and FAQs.

Read the full ranking

Closest alternatives in Video Conferencing

#5
GoTo Meeting
Long-running mid-market meetings under Vista Equity ownership.
★ 4.2 public
#7
Whereby
Browser-first Norwegian meeting platform with embedded-meetings API for product builders.
★ 4.6 public
#4
Webex Meetings
Cisco-anchored meetings with hardware codec differentiation; declining share but real for regulated enterprises.
★ 4.3 partial
Help the next buyer

Contribute your verified deal price

Pricing in B2B software is opaque because vendors want it that way. Verified buyer prices fix that, anonymously. Share what you actually paid for Around; we’ll add it to the verified pricing dataset on this page (with company size band only, no identifying details).

Submit anonymously