Best Webinar Platforms with Breakout Rooms

Hubilo
,
January 29, 2025

If you’ve ever hosted a webinar where your attendees started checking their phones, zoning out, or just not engaging, you're not alone. It’s a common struggle for many webinar hosts, especially when the format feels one-sided. The solution? Breakout rooms. These virtual spaces transform a dull presentation into an interactive experience so participants can collaborate, network, and truly connect. 

But not all webinar platforms offer the same breakout room experience, so how do you choose the best one for your needs? This guide walks you through the top platforms that can turn your webinar into a dynamic, engaging event.

Why Do You Need Breakout Rooms in Webinars

Why should you care about breakout rooms? Simple. Breakout rooms allow you to take your webinar to the next level by allowing attendees to interact, brainstorm, and network in smaller, more manageable groups. These smaller settings are perfect for fostering collaboration and dynamic discussions, which are harder to achieve in larger webinar formats.

  • Enhanced Engagement: Breakout rooms allow participants to actively engage with the content and each other. You can break up a large group into smaller ones and create real-time conversation opportunities. This immediately raises the interaction levels.
  • Collaboration and Networking: Whether running a training session, a brainstorming meeting, or a networking event, breakout rooms allow for focused, relevant interactions. Attendees can discuss ideas, share feedback, and build relationships in a way that's more personal than just watching a presenter.
  • Personalized Experiences: Breakout rooms can create a sense of exclusivity and a more tailored experience for each participant. You can divide your attendees into groups based on interests, roles, or experience, ensuring each group has relevant conversations that matter to them.

The bottom line? Breakout rooms are an essential feature for webinars in 2025. They help facilitate communication, build relationships, and ensure your attendees leave with more than just a few slides to review.

Top Webinar and Virtual Event Platforms Offering Breakout Rooms

Now that we know why breakout rooms are essential and what features to look for let’s dive into the best webinar platforms offering this feature. These platforms are hand-picked for their reliability, customization, and engagement tools, so you can always deliver a top-notch experience.

1. Hubilo: Best for Interactive Webinars

Hubilo

When it comes to interactive webinars, Hubilo is among the front runners. It’s an all-in-one platform that has robust breakout room functionality. At the same time, you can enjoy a suite of features designed to boost engagement and conversions.

  • Unlimited Breakout Rooms: Hubilo allows you to set up multiple breakout rooms based on your needs, whether hosting a small or a large-scale virtual event. This flexibility ensures your event can scale with your audience.
  • Real-Time Engagement: Hubilo’s breakout rooms come with engagement tools like live polls, Q&A sessions, and emoji reactions, so you can keep attendees involved throughout their smaller group discussions.
  • Seamless Experience: The platform integrates well with other tools and workflows, making it a breeze to manage events, track participation, and follow up with attendees afterward.
  • Customization and Branding: Hubilo’s user-friendly interface allows you to brand your breakout rooms to match your event’s theme, ensuring a consistent experience across your entire webinar.

Looking to create interactive, engaging webinars with breakout rooms? Hubilo offers an intuitive, flexible platform that will elevate your event experience.

Ready to take your webinars to the next level? Explore Hubilo's breakout room features today!

2. BigMarker

BigMarker

If you’re hosting a large-scale webinar and need multiple breakout sessions without sacrificing performance, BigMarker is an excellent choice. BigMarker’s webinar platform supports up to 10,000 attendees and provides all the tools you need to host successful sessions with breakout rooms.

  • Easy Breakout Room Setup: BigMarker allows you to create breakout rooms before and during the event, making it a flexible solution for last-minute changes.
  • Engagement Features: The platform provides live chat, polls, and audience interaction features that are easy to implement in breakout rooms, ensuring your participants stay engaged.
  • Customizable Branding: Similar to Hubilo, BigMarker lets you customize your event to reflect your brand’s identity, essential for creating a cohesive and professional experience.

BigMarker excels when you must host large events with breakout rooms, providing a reliable, easy-to-use platform with robust engagement features.

3. Zoom

Zoom

Zoom is synonymous with virtual meetings, and its breakout room feature has become a go-to solution for many businesses. With Zoom, you can create up to 50 breakout rooms in one webinar, making it a solid option for those who need simplicity and reliability.

  • Manual and Auto Assignment: Zoom allows you to assign participants to breakout rooms either manually or automatically. You can also let participants choose their rooms.
  • Easy to Use: One of the biggest draws of Zoom is its simplicity. Whether you're hosting a team meeting or a large-scale event, Zoom makes it easy for hosts to manage breakout rooms.
  • Video and Audio Controls: You can control the video and audio settings for each breakout room, which helps reduce distractions and ensure the focus remains on the content.

However, Zoom does have some limitations. For larger events with more complex breakout room needs, you may need to look at other platforms like Livestorm or Hubilo, which offer more customization and flexibility.

4. Remo

Remo

Remo is a great choice if your main goal is to encourage networking and spontaneous conversations among attendees. Unlike Zoom or Webex, Remo creates a more "humanized" virtual experience, with customizable event spaces that mimic real-life interaction.

  • Virtual Tables and Rooms: Attendees can move between different virtual tables and rooms, making the experience more organic and natural.
  • Engagement Tools: Remo provides built-in video, chat, and screen-sharing features that make it easy for participants to collaborate and share ideas during breakout sessions.
  • Networking and Matchmaking: The platform's networking and matchmaking tools ensure that the right people connect in each room, making it ideal for industry events or meetups.

Remo offers a more informal, interactive way to connect attendees and encourage collaboration, making it perfect for virtual networking events.

5. Webex

Webex by Cisco has long been a trusted name in video conferencing. It’s ideal for hybrid work environments where participants are both in the office and remote. With its robust breakout room capabilities, Webex offers a seamless solution for companies collaborating across locations.

  • Pre-Assign Breakout Rooms: With Webex, you can pre-assign participants to breakout rooms before the webinar starts, which is especially useful for organizing group discussions or training sessions.
  • Moderation and Control: Webex gives hosts and co-hosts full control over breakout rooms, including the ability to broadcast messages, set time limits, and monitor room activities. This makes it easier to manage large events while maintaining engagement.
  • Multilingual Support: One standout feature of Webex is its support for multilingual events. It offers live translations, which can be a game-changer for international teams or global webinars.

While Webex is great for hybrid and remote teams, it can be slightly more rigid than platforms like Livestorm or Hubilo in terms of customization and user experience. It’s still one of the most reliable and scalable options for large, complex webinars with breakout rooms.

6. Google Meet

Google Meet

If you're already using Google Workspace for your organization, Google Meet is possibly the most suitable choice for hosting webinars with breakout rooms. It integrates seamlessly with Google’s suite of tools, such as Calendar, Docs, and Drive, making it a natural fit for teams already embedded in the Google ecosystem.

  • Easy Room Assignment: Google Meet allows you to assign participants to breakout rooms manually or automatically, giving you flexibility in organizing your sessions.
  • Customizable Options: While not as feature-rich as other platforms, this Meet provides basic features like renaming rooms, adjusting meeting codes, and using the timer function to track sessions.
  • Familiar Interface: Since many people are already familiar with Google Meet from regular meetings, it’s easy to get started and onboard attendees quickly.

One limitation of Google Meet is that it doesn’t offer advanced reporting tools or engagement features like live polling or Q&A, essential for making your breakout rooms more interactive. Still, Google Meet can get the job done without a steep learning curve for straightforward webinars and meetings.

7. Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is a seamless choice for businesses that rely on Microsoft 365 for their daily workflows. With integration across all Microsoft tools, Teams makes collaboration during webinars and breakout sessions incredibly smooth, especially for internal meetings or business events.

  • Room Flexibility: Microsoft Teams allows you to create up to 50 breakout rooms, and participants can easily move between rooms.
  • Pre-Assigned Rooms: Like Webex, Microsoft Teams lets you pre-assign attendees to breakout rooms, making it easy to organize discussions in advance.
  • Collaboration Tools: With built-in integrations for Microsoft apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, attendees can seamlessly collaborate within their breakout rooms using shared documents or files.

The biggest downside of Teams is that it’s not as flexible regarding branding or customization as other platforms like Livestorm or Hubilo.

Hubilo

🎤 Elevate Your Webinars with Breakout Rooms! Boost engagement & create dynamic sessions. Check out Hubilo today! 🚀

8. GoTo Webinar

GoTo Webinar

GoTo Webinar is a powerful platform designed to host webinars, making it ideal for presentations, product demos, and training sessions. While GoTo Webinar doesn’t offer as many breakout room customization options as other platforms, it’s a great option for presentation-driven webinars.

  • Breakout Room Basics: With GoTo Webinar, you can create up to 50 rooms. The platform lets you assign attendees manually or automatically, and you can easily switch between breakout rooms as the host.
  • Live Support and Assistance: GoTo Webinar offers an “assistance” option within breakout rooms; attendees can use it to reach out for help from the host or co-host without disrupting the session.
  • Simple Interface: GoTo Webinar’s interface is intuitive and easy to use, making it a good choice for those who want to keep things simple without sacrificing functionality.

However, GoTo Webinar lacks more advanced engagement tools, like live polling or interactive Q&A features, which can make breakout sessions feel a bit flat. Platforms like Livestorm or Hubilo may be better options for more interactive events.

9. LiveWebinars

LiveWebinars

LiveWebinars offers a customizable and feature-rich webinar experience. This is a great option if you need to fully brand your webinar and have access to advanced analytics.

  • Brand Customization: LiveWebinars excels at customizable branding, allowing you to design your breakout rooms and overall events to align with your company’s look and feel.
  • Breakout Room Features: LiveWebinars allows you to create multiple breakout rooms and assign participants manually or randomly. It has robust reporting tools to measure engagement and performance during breakout sessions.
  • Engagement Tools: You’ll find all the essential engagement tools, including screen sharing, polls, and chat. However, like GoTo Webinar, LiveWebinars is more presentation-focused than collaborative, so it may not be as effective for highly interactive sessions.

If branding and customization are your top priorities, LiveWebinars is a great platform to consider. However, Hubilo or Livestorm may be more suitable for those seeking more interactivity and flexibility.

10. Livestorm

Livestorm

Livestorm is a well-known name that you can use to host interactive and dynamic webinars. With unlimited breakout rooms, detailed analytics, and a host of engagement tools, Livestorm is perfect for webinars requiring more than just presentation slides.

  • Unlimited Breakout Rooms: Livestorm supports as many breakout rooms as you need, which makes it perfect for large-scale events. 
  • Built-in Engagement: Livestorm offers live polls, chat features, and emoji reactions in breakout rooms, ensuring that participants stay engaged and involved in the session.
  • Analytics: One of Livestorm’s standout features is its robust analytics dashboard, which allows you to track attendance, engagement, and participant behavior. This is particularly useful for post-webinar analysis.

Livestorm is a great choice for businesses looking for a feature-rich webinar platform with full customization and unlimited breakout rooms. 

Potential Scenarios for Using Breakout Rooms

Now that we’ve covered some challenges, let’s talk about the real-world scenarios where breakout rooms shine. Breakout rooms are not just a feature for large-scale webinars; they can be leveraged in various settings, from educational workshops to business meetings. Let’s explore the most common use cases for webinar breakout rooms.

1. Online Classes and Workshops for Group Learning and Collaboration

Breakout rooms are fantastic for online education, especially when you want to encourage collaboration and peer-to-peer learning. In virtual classrooms, instructors can assign students to smaller breakout groups, allowing them to work on projects, discuss course material, or engage in brainstorming activities.

  • Instructors can use breakout rooms to:
    • Facilitate small-group discussions on specific topics
    • Run collaborative problem-solving exercises
    • Provide one-on-one support during group activities
    • Encourage networking among students or participants with similar interests

With platforms like Livestorm and Hubilo, instructors can move easily between breakout rooms to check group progress, answer questions, or guide discussions, making the learning experience more interactive and personalized.

2. Business Meetings to Facilitate Brainstorming and Team-Building

Breakout rooms can significantly enhance the dynamics of a business meeting by splitting a large group into smaller, more manageable teams. Smaller group settings often lead to more productive and creative outcomes, Whether for a brainstorming session, strategic planning, or team-building exercises.

  • Breakout rooms in business settings:
    • Allow teams to tackle different aspects of a project and report back to the larger group
    • Enable focused problem-solving on complex issues
    • Support cross-departmental collaboration in a more informal setting
    • Promote networking and relationship-building, especially for remote teams

For example, platforms like Webex and Microsoft Teams allow seamless team collaboration, so they are perfect for internal company events or client-facing meetings where you need to break down larger teams into specialized discussion groups.

3. Networking Events to Enable Meaningful Connections Among Participants

Networking is often one of the most valuable aspects of any virtual event. Breakout rooms allow attendees to engage in more intimate, meaningful conversations that are difficult to achieve in a large virtual space. Airmeet and Remo specialize in facilitating networking by offering interactive, social lounge environments that make it easy for people to meet and connect based on their interests.

  • In a networking setting, breakout rooms can:
    • Pair people with similar interests or goals for deeper discussions
    • Enable speed networking, where participants rotate between rooms to meet new people quickly
    • Help build relationships by allowing smaller groups to share insights or experiences

These intimate networking sessions allow attendees to form lasting professional connections, which are particularly useful in virtual conferences and trade shows.

Looking to create an unforgettable networking experience in your next webinar? See how Hubilo can elevate your breakout sessions to the next level!

Conclusion

When choosing webinar software with breakout rooms, it’s essential to pick a platform that fits your goals, audience size, and desired level of interaction. Whether you're hosting a large corporate event, a training session, or a networking event, breakout rooms provide a powerful tool to keep attendees engaged, foster collaboration, and deliver a memorable experience.

Hubilo, with its unlimited breakout rooms, seamless integration options, and robust engagement tools, is an excellent choice for creating dynamic and interactive webinars. It allows you to manage large events while providing a smooth experience for your attendees.

Are you ready to transform your webinars into engaging, interactive experiences? Sign up for Hubilo today and see how easy it is to host webinars that truly make an impact!

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Author
Hubilo

Hubilo is the webinar platform built for marketers that helps you 2X your pipeline. Founded in 2015, Hubilo's powerful engagement features, dedicated client experience team, and custom branding tools have helped create over 12K virtual events & webinars, creating hundreds of millions of minutes of high-engagement experiences and counting. Headquartered in Bengaluru and San Francisco, Hubilo's 200+ employees are dedicated to enabling webinars & virtual events that convert.

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