RingCentral and 8×8 are both top-tier options in the VoIP phone system and business communications space. While the two platforms have lots of similarities, we recommend RingCentral for most businesses deciding between these options.
RingCentral is better because it’s more flexible and supports a broader range of business types and use cases. Both platforms are geared towards midsize and larger organizations, but RingCentral still works really well for smaller businesses seeking advanced features. With that said, 8×8 has the edge for international calling and it’s a better choice if you need to host audio or video conferences with hundreds of people on a regular basis.
8×8 and RingCentral Compared to Their Closest Competitors
RingCentral is great for any scaling business that wants a powerful and reliable communication suite. Compared to alternatives on the market, it shines for feature-packed plans and top-notch support at a reasonable price point. You can get a business phone system, video conferencing software, SMS messaging, team chat, and other collaboration features—all under one roof. It’s also a great choice as a cloud contact center, especially for midsize sales teams.
8×8’s unified communications platform is nearly identical to RingCentral, but it’s a better fit for larger organizations with a global presence. It’s a great option for contact center use cases, and you’ll never outgrow it. Overall, 8×8 is an advanced system that’s not intended for smaller companies. It works well for industries like education, healthcare, financial services, government, transportation, and manufacturing.
Nextiva is our favorite business phone system, and it has the edge over both of these providers for the vast majority of scenarios. It’s easier to set up, deploy, and use on a day-to-day basis for teams of any size, including small businesses. Nextiva’s more affordable than RingCentral and 8×8, all while maintaining long-term scalability and ease of use.
Check out our reviews of the best call center software and best business phone systems to learn more about our top picks in this space.
8×8 and RingCentral Similarities
All-in-one business communications: Both of these providers offer unified communications systems, which means you get a phone system with unlimited calling, SMS/MMS messaging, conference calls, video conferencing, and internal team chat from a single platform. Your team can seamlessly make and receive calls from any smartphone, computer, or VoIP-enabled desk phone. With a unified communication platform, you’re unlocking dozens of additional features and capabilities that can’t be done from a traditional landline phone.
Built-in team collaboration features: Beyond call handling, RingCentral and 8×8 double as internal collaboration tools. You can use them for team chat, file sharing, conference calls, video meetings, collaborative notes, cloud storage, breakout rooms, and basically anything your team needs to stay in contact with each other. A support rep can field an inbound call from a customer while simultaneously chatting with a teammate for assistance, all from the same dashboard.
Powerful analytics: These tools both provide in-depth reports and analytics that can be used to improve performance and make crucial business decisions. Managers can track real-time usage, call quality, and even department-specific or agent-specific metrics. You’ll get a high-level overview of your team’s performance as well as granular details that can be used for improvements. With both of these platforms, the analytics and reporting features get better on higher plan tiers and contact center packages.
Ultra reliable and secure: RingCentral and 8×8 are both industry-leaders in the business communications space. They offer exceptional call quality and reliability—each boasting an impressive 99.999% uptime SLA. You can also rest easy knowing all of your calls, texts, messages, meetings, and data are protected with enterprise-level encryption. Both providers also offer industry-specific compliance options, and you’ll have tons of different user authentication options and permissions at your fingertips.
Scalability: These platforms are built to support scaling organizations. You can start with an entry-level package and continue adding users or upgrading your plan whenever you’re ready. RingCentral and 8×8 both have cloud-based contact center options that can accommodate hundreds or potentially thousands of employees—so you’ll never outgrow them. So as your company hires new people or expands its footprint into new locations, your phone system can adapt and grow with you.
Setup and deployment: This is an area where both RingCentral and 8×8 are similar, but actually a step behind market alternatives. Neither of these systems let you sign up, deploy, and start making calls within 15 minutes. There’s a longer buying cycle here and there’s definitely a learning curve when you onboard new users. These systems are more powerful than some of the lightweight options out there, so we won’t hold this against them too much.
Where RingCentral Shines
Advanced call routing: RingCentral has arguably the best call routing capabilities for any platform at this price point. It gives smaller teams access to enterprise-level capabilities that’s fully customizable for any number, department, or extension. Creating answering rules, forward to specific numbers, redirect calls based on hours—whatever you need.
RingCentral even offers an IVR with every plan, which allows inbound callers to use their keypad or voice to route themselves to the right department. 8×8’s advanced IVR is only available for contact centers.
Powerful features at an affordable price: While RingCentral isn’t the cheapest phone system on the market, it’s definitely not the most expensive either. The features you get at this price point are really an incredible value, especially when you compare it to what’s offered by competitors.
Every plan comes with an IVR and multi-level auto attendant, call queues, call recording, receptionist console, team whiteboarding, developer access to platform APIs, and even video recording. You’ll also get AI-powered meeting insights and live transcriptions, which is something other providers typically charge as a paid add-on.
8×8’s AI capabilities centered more around analyzing call center data. But your team won’t have AI at their fingertips to help them be more productive like they do with RingCentral.
Hundreds of integrations: RingCentral offers over 300 out-of-the-box integrations to third-party business apps. This is a significant edge over 8×8, which offers around 60.
These integrations really help streamline the way your team works. From centralizing data to having RingCentral’s calling capabilities within a CRM or helpdesk solution, it eliminates the number of open screens and tabs required on everyone’s computer.
Sales-specific contact center features: RingCentral and 8×8 both have strong contact center features. But RingCentral has a sales-specific tool that can be added to any plan—even if you’re not a contact center package. This is a huge perk, as any business with a small sales department can simply add the feature to its unified communications plan instead of upgrading to a full contact center.
With RingSense for Sales, you’re getting RingCentral fully integrated into your sales CRM to automate tasks, improve coaching, and ensure you’re reaching the right people at the perfect time.
Powered by AI, this feature helps identify key moments and pain points in the sales process. It improves forecasts and automatically generates call summaries, notes, and next steps after each call.
Exceptional customer support: RingCentral has your back. Their friendly and knowledgeable support team is available 24/7 via phone and live chat—and best of all, they actually solve your problems. While the occasional poor experience is inevitable, we noticed that RingCentral’s customer reviews had significantly more positive things to say about their customer service compared to 8×8.
You’ll also benefit from personalized and professional onboarding when you’re rolling out the platform company-wide. They’ll help you with the planning, VoIP implementation, and even project management level tasks for larger and more complex rollouts.
Where RingCentral Falls Short
Internet fax is only available on select plans: RingCentral does not offer internet faxing on its entry-level plan. This is definitely a let down, as 8×8 and other tools on the market offer this feature on all plans at a similar price point. While not a deal breaker, it’s definitely noteworthy that you’ll need to pay extra for an otherwise standard feature.
Need to upgrade for hot desking: Hot desking is a must-have feature for hybrid workspaces. It allows anyone on your team to sit at a shared desk and then “sign in” to a VoIP desk phone—so they can make calls, receive calls, and access their voicemail, from that device using their own extension or number. 8×8 offers hot desking with every plan, but RingCentral only offers it on the Advanced and Ultra packages or higher.
Supported languages: For multi-national organizations and teams dispersed across the globe, having a phone system that supports everyone’s native language is important. RingCentral currently works in 16 languages. But 8×8 supports a whopping 46 languages—giving it the clear edge here, and one of the many reasons why 8×8 is better for international calling capabilities.
Check out our RingCentral review for a deeper dive into this platform.
Where 8×8 Shines
International calling: 8×8 has arguably the best international calling capabilities in the industry. While most providers (like RingCentral) offer unlimited calling in the US with every plan, 8×8 takes that a step further by offering unlimited calling to 14 countries with its entry-level unified communication suite. You’ll pay a bit more for this, but it’s still way cheaper than paying the international calling rates offered by RingCentral.
If you upgrade your 8×8 plan, the next tier offers unlimited calling to a whopping 48 countries. This is more than double the number of supported countries offered as add-on international calling packages from other providers.
Large audio and video conference calls: 8×8 is built for large organizations, and its conference calling capabilities echo this statement. Every plan supports up to 500 active participants on an audio or video call—which just blows the competition out of the water.
For comparison purposes, RingCentral’s first two plan tiers support up to 100 active participants, and the highest tier supports up to 200 participants. So 8×8’s entry-level option can support 2.5x more users than RingCentral’s top-level plan.
Flexible and scalable cloud contact center: 8×8 shines as a cloud contact center solution. They offer just two unified communications plans but three contact center packages to support businesses of any size.
This is a bit different than similar tools on the market, including RingCentral, which offers more VoIP and communication options but just a single call center solution. 8×8’s contact center plans can be used for virtually any need, including sales, support, customer service, or any combination of these.
Live stream meetings via YouTube: This is a super unique feature that isn’t offered by RingCentral or other 8×8 competitors. You can stream a meeting or webinar directly to YouTube from within your 8×8 platform—expanding your reach to an unlimited number of viewers. This can be useful for several different reasons.
If you want to host a meeting with over 500 people, you can just create a shareable YouTube link ahead of time and share that URL with anyone who won’t be actively participating or presenting on the call. Alternatively, you can host large events, demos, or webinars through a trusted platform that people are already familiar with. This feature is available for all 8×8 users who activate and enable live streaming to their YouTube account.
Mix and match plans: We really like that 8×8 lets you mix and match your plans for different users. It’s a nice way to help keep costs down and ensure that certain teams, departments, or locations are only paying for features and capabilities that they’ll actually use. You could keep certain users and a less expensive or entry-level tier while reserving unlimited calling in 48 countries just for staff who need to dial outbound to those locations.
You can’t do this with RingCentral. So if you have 90 users and you need just ten of them to access a specific feature on a higher plan tier, you’ll need to upgrade everyone.
Where 8×8 Falls Short
Pricing is not transparent: 8×8 no longer displays pricing information with its phone system and contact center plans. There’s a place on the website that says VoIP phone systems start at $15 per month per user and plans with advanced features start at $40 per month per user, but it’s unclear what they’re referring to. So if you’re interested in 8×8, you’ll need to book a meeting and request a quote from their sales team. RingCentral’s pricing is clearly displayed for all of its plans, making it easier to find a solution that fits within your budget without having to go through any extra steps.
Inconsistent customer support: Lots of 8×8 customers complain about the level of support they received during the initial setup and onboarding process. Some users also said that 8×8’s support was slow and just an overall frustrating experience. While it’s normal to have some less-than-favorable reviews for any platform in this space, RingCentral definitely has superior customer service—with personalized onboarding services and general support available 24/7 via phone and live chat.
Not great for small businesses: We don’t recommend 8×8 for any business with less than 50 employees. There are cheaper and less-complex options out there that are a better fit for small teams. While RingCentral is also geared toward midsize or larger businesses, it can be used as a small business solution if your company wants more advanced phone system features.
Read our full 8×8 review to learn more about its pros, cons, pricing, and features.
8×8 vs RingCentral: The Final Verdict
RingCentral is better than 8×8 for most businesses. While the two platforms have tons of overlapping features and similarities, RingCentral delivers everything that most businesses need with advanced capabilities, quality support, and transparent pricing. It’s great for midsize organizations and large organizations, but RingCentral is versatile enough to support smaller businesses, too.
That said, go with 8×8 if you need international calling capabilities for large contact centers. In addition to its unlimited calling capabilities included with dozens of countries, 8×8 also supports large-scale meetings with up to 500 participants and even offers alternatives to expand beyond that number.
If it doesn’t sound like either of these solutions are quite right for your needs, check out our reviews of the best call center software and best business phone systems for alternatives.
