Proton made a privacy-focused Google Meet and Zoom replacement
Proton started with a simple VPN service and encrypted email hosting, but the company slowly expanded into cloud storage, password managers, and other connected tools. Now the company offers its services as a complete replacement for Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 for organizations and businesses, which includes an alternative to Google Meet.
Everything you need
Proton Workspace is a fully functional collaboration suite that essentially contains everything you need to lead a team, all wrapped in Proton’s signature end-to-end encryption. The company’s main pitch is pretty simple: its robust privacy-focused approach means that even the company can’t access your data, and if an attacker compromises Proton’s servers, the encrypted information remains out of reach. Unlike Proton, companies like Microsoft and Google can harvest user data on their servers to optimize features and integrations.
Organizations can choose between two plans depending on their needs. Workspace Standard costs $12.99 per month (billed annually) or $14.99 (month per month) per person, bundling existing services including Mail, Drive, Pass, Calendar with Appointments, VPN, Docs and Sheets, and Meet. The Workspace Premium tier builds on everything in Standard, but comes with more business-focused features, including expanded storage, email data retention policies, and higher participant limits per Meet call. It is priced at $19.99 per month (billed annually) or $24.99 (monthly).
What’s notable here is that Proton doesn’t just compete on privacy. The standard and premium plans are priced lower than the Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace plans aimed at business customers. Proton also offers extras like a VPN and password manager which would incur additional costs.
If you’re an existing Proton Business Suite customer, you get a free upgrade to Workspace Standard, including the new Meet video conferencing tool.
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Beyond bundling its existing services, Workspace also includes Proton Meet, an alternative to MS Teams, Zoom and Google Meet. It uses the Messaging Layer Security (MLS) protocol and is end-to-end encrypted. This contrasts with Proton’s rivals, which can access your meetings. You can generate a meeting link for participants and you don’t need to have a Proton account to join the call.
Proton Meet is included in both Workspace plans, with the Premium tier benefiting from higher participant limits per call. However, free Proton accounts can hold meetings up to 60 minutes long. There is a “Meet Professional” add-on for other Proton plans to unlock all features.
Proton is also introducing its first privacy-focused AI assistant, called Lumo. Unlike most LLM models, Lumo AI uses zero-access encryption, meaning Proton does not have access to your AI conversations or use them to train future models. AI Assistant is only limited to Premium subscription.
With Workspace, Proton is clearly aimed at companies that manage sensitive data, intellectual property or activities requiring greater confidentiality. Whether this will be enough to convince companies to abandon established platforms remains to be seen.
Source: Proton
