teamviewer vs zoho
Image: Rudzhan/Adobe Stock

What is TeamViewer?

TeamViewer is an exhaustive remote desktop solution that covers remote access, control and support for most desktop and mobile platforms. The software allows users to remotely access computers or mobile devices regardless of their location. TeamViewer is cross-platform and leverages built-in security and great performance to support remote devices.

What is Zoho Assist?

Zoho Assist is cloud-based remote access and support software that uses web-based, on-demand remote support sessions to support customers. Users can securely and reliably configure unattended remote access to manage a wide variety of devices.

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TeamViewer vs. Zoho Assist: Feature comparison

FeatureTeamViewerZoho Assist
Remote wipeYesNo
Multi-monitor supportYesYes
Endpoint employee device managementYesNo
Device enrollmentYesYes
Remote device controlYesYes

Head-to-head comparison: TeamViewer vs. Zoho Assist

Unattended access

A key feature of remote desktop software is the ability to access unattended devices. You neither need to be physically present nor send someone to provide you access. Both TeamViewer and Zoho Assist share this feature.

TeamViewer’s secure unattended access offers users the ability to assign rights to devices to prevent unauthorized access. It allows admins to silently enable permanent access to as many unattended devices as they please on their networks without needing human intervention on the remote side. For organizations that work across time zones, TeamViewer ensures remote resources are available to reduce time lost in the transfer and exchange of files. Users can manage a maximum of 500 devices.

Zoho Assist provides unattended remote access by installing a lightweight agent on remote devices to provide access to these devices. This bulk deployment process saves time by making it easy for clients to configure unattended access for many remote devices. Zoho Assist’s Wake on LAN enables users to remotely turn on computers using one click regardless of whether they are sleeping, hibernating or powered off.

Screen sharing

With TeamViewer, users can remotely show media that’s on their devices to others without ever sending any files. These include videos, image files, presentations and documents. Additionally, TeamViewer allows users to share iPhone and iPad screens in real-time with other mobile and desktop devices, saving users the hassle of exploring complex workarounds. However, the quality of these remote interactions may be heavily impacted by the internet bandwidth at both ends.

Zoho Assist’s Remote Meeting feature enables users to share screens through online meetings with their participants. Users can schedule meetings and set reminders to ensure time is efficiently used. Meeting presenters can reverse their shared screens with a participant to hand the presenter role to them. Zoho Assist also provides users with virtual whiteboards to allow them to make illustrations on the remote screen.

Zoho Assist features a built-in chat window to ensure users stay connected without resorting to external messaging. Screen sharing is currently only available for Windows and macOS and only for the Professional and Enterprise packages of Zoho Remote Support.

Customization and branding

TeamViewer allows its users to brand the IT services they offer their clients and take credit for these custom user experiences. The branding options available to users include adding their company logo, colors and personalized text.

TeamViewer customers or employees can also initiate chats immediately as well as complete a customer satisfaction form at the end of a session. They can access brandable TeamViewer modules like QuickSupport and QuickJoin without installing TeamViewer.

Zoho Assist offers an intuitive and sleek user interface to ease the setup and management of user accounts. This supports effortless rebranding as one can go beyond basic branding options to customize portal URLs to access Zoho Assist. Customized email templates can help users keep up brand language in communications. Zoho Assist has a customer plugin that allows customers to join sessions from their desktops, but it is only available for Windows.

Choosing between TeamViewer and Zoho Assist

The effectiveness of implementing each tool is dependent on your use case. Zoho Assist has proved to be most popular among SMBs while TeamViewer exhibits a more balanced preference not only among SMBs but also large enterprises.

TeamViewer has a wide range of use cases and is ideal for professionals offering remote support, IT management, augmented reality support, web conferencing, web monitoring and  digitized work processes. Zoho Assist is more targeted toward IT remote support as it has a strong presence in outsourced IT and MSP support as well as customer help desks.