Need to hide that messy living room behind you? Have a roommate who always walks into the frame during work calls? Or, maybe you just want to add some fun to your Zoom chats?
Whatever your reason, virtual backgrounds can be a gamechanger for your video meetings—and no, they’re not limited to Zoom. With the right app, you can have the same virtual background across multiple web conferencing platforms.
So all you need to do now is find the right app. To make your life easy, I’ve done the research for you and curated a list of the best virtual background apps for every situation.
What Is a Virtual Background App and Why Do You Need One?
Virtual background apps, also known as virtual camera apps, allow you to hide your background and replace it with an image, video, or GIF.
And while yes, most of the major web conferencing apps come with built-in virtual backgrounds, this fails to solve a remaining problem: maintaining consistency when switching between video platforms. When you’ve got one call on Zoom, another on Teams, and yet another on Google Meet, you have to change your background for each platform. But with a virtual background app, you can customize your background to your liking and use the same one regardless of where you’re hosting a meeting.
Which Web Conferencing Apps Have Built-In Virtual Backgrounds?
As mentioned above, many of the major web conferencing apps come with built-in virtual background capabilities. Here are just a few:
- Zoom
- BlueJeans
- Microsoft Teams
- Skype
- Google Meet
- Cisco Webex
But if you want to maintain consistency across all platforms, or if you need extra features to really make your video calls shine, below are the best virtual background apps.
7 Best Virtual Background Apps You Can Use With Any Web Conferencing Platform
1. Mmhmm
Price: Paid plans start at $8.33/month billed yearly. Mmhmm offers a 14-day trial, after which it converts to a limited free version. With the free version, you get access to the Premium Tools for one hour a day.
Available for: macOS, Windows
Top Features of Mmhmm
- Adjust the size of the presenter
- Create and present slides within the Mmhmm app
- Copilot mode lets you edit and present with a buddy
- Virtual backgrounds (called “Rooms”), including some that are animated
- Face filters
- Laser pointer for presentations
- Add text, GIFs, video, and images to presentations
I was impressed with Mmhmm! This virtual background app has the most user-friendly tutorial experience, in my opinion—complete with funny but short videos walking you through the app.
It also has a rich set of features that you never knew you needed, like turning on Big Hands, allowing the app to recognize certain hand gestures, which it turns into icon pop-ups. For example, if you put your hands together in a gesture of thanks, a large quote bubble will pop up that says “thank you.” Or, if you bring your hands together in the shape of a heart, a smiling red heart icon will pop up.
You can also use Mmhmm as your go-to slide presentation creator while using Zoom. Within the Mmhmm application, you can create and transition through each slide in real-time, seeing a preview of yourself just as people in Zoom will see you. I found this much easier than sharing my screen within Zoom for a presentation.
Mmhmm has a few animated virtual backgrounds, too, such as clouds floating by or a cabin with a fire going as snow falls outside. You can also search for more backgrounds in its library.
Bonus app to elevate your virtual meetings: Krisp
If you’re looking for additional layer of protection, then consider using a noise cancellation app.
Krisp eliminates unwanted noise such as dogs barking, keyboards clicking, and cars honking. It even removes acoustic and room echo, as well as provides useful meeting insights. How’s that for an all-in-one tool? With Krisp, you can hide your audio distractions for the ultimate productive video meeting experience.
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2. XSplit VCam
Price: Free limited version. Premium version starting at $8/month
Available for: macOS
Top Features of VCam
- Remove background
- Blur background
- Add virtual backgrounds from a built-in gallery, uploaded media, YouTube videos, Unsplash stock photos, or webpages
- Edit background’s brightness, saturation, hue, and more
Though the free version is limited, it still allows you to finetune the blur levels from 0 to 100, making VCam the best virtual background app for those wanting to blur their backgrounds. You can even edit the background image itself, adjusting things like brightness, hue, and saturation to better match your own face and lighting.
To me, the most fun feature of VCam is the ability to play a YouTube video as your background simply by pasting the video’s URL.
3. ManyCam
Price: Free limited version. Paid plans starting at $39/year or a one-time fee of $79 for lifetime access. ManyCam offers a 30-day money-back guarantee for all plans.
Available for: macOS and Windows
Top Features of ManyCam
- Virtual backgrounds
- Blur background
- Whiteboard
- Layers
- Import your own presets
ManyCam feels more like a design studio than a virtual background app. It lets you add multiple layers to your virtual background and save it as a preset to use across your conferencing apps. You can even use a tool to blur only specific parts of your background and add text across your screen. In my opinion, ManyCam is way more robust than necessary for the average employee hosting online meetings.
The free version of ManyCam also felt restrictive. Without the paid version, I wasn’t able to blur the entire background or add a virtual background, which was the whole point of my downloading the app.
To use ManyCam’s virtual background feature, you must have the Studio plan, which is $79 a year or $145 for a lifetime license.
4. ChromaCam
Price: ChromaCam Lite is the free version. Paid versions start at $6.99/month or a one-time fee of $44.99 for access forever. ChromaCam Pro access comes for free with paid GoToMeeting accounts.
Available for: macOS and Windows
Top Features of ChromaCam
- Upload your own logo
- Overlay filters on the background
- Blur background
- Use preset virtual backgrounds
- Upload your own background
The free version ChromaCam has a nice variety of virtual backgrounds to choose from. It also has background blur, but the full capability for it is only available on the paid plan. To access more virtual backgrounds, get full blur control, and upload your own images, you must pay for the Lifetime plan.
5. NVIDIA Broadcast
Price: Free
Available for: Windows
Top Features of NVIDIA Broadcast
- Virtual backgrounds and background blur
- Video noise removal for a clearer look in low-light conditions
- Noise removal and room echo removal
A favorite among gamers, NVIDIA Broadcast offers noise removal and virtual backgrounds for livestreams and video conferencing. Some users complain that the app uses a lot of resources while gaming, but it’s not clear if this happens with plain video conferencing. It’s also worth noting that, to use NVIDIA Broadcast, your computer must have an NVIDIA graphics card that is GeForce RTX 2060, Quadro RTX 3000, TITAN RTX, or higher.
6. CyberLink PerfectCam
Price: Free trial available. Paid plans start at $9.99/month.
Available for: Windows
Top Features of CyberLink PerfectCam
- Virtual backgrounds and background blur
- Lighting adjustments and AI-powered face touchup tools such as makeup and skin smoothing
PerfectCam feels like Photoshop for video conferencing. Yes, it has the basics of background blur and virtual background images, but it goes above and beyond with unique touchup tools such as makeup, where you can virtually apply lipstick, eyeliner, and eyeshadow onto your face. This could be useful for those hectic mornings when you want to roll out of bed and hop on a video call with little time to get ready. PerfectCam also lets you smooth your skin and adjust the video’s brightness.
7. Snap Camera
Price: Free
Available for: macOS and Windows
Top Features of Snap Camera
- “Lenses” that add fun features to your face. Some change the background too.
- Categories like Work & Study From Home, Autumn, Makeup, and Funny
Those of you familiar with Lenses on Snapchat will love Snap Camera. This app brings Lenses to desktop video calls. Snap Camera is mainly for adding effects to your face, not your background. But it does have some actual virtual backgrounds, such as an office and a lecture hall, which you can find under the category “Work & Study From Home.” Plus, Snap Camera is so fun, I couldn’t leave it off this list!
To really step it up a notch, you can use Snap Camera in conjunction with a virtual background app to polish your background and enhance your face.
With the Right Virtual Background App, You Can Look Professional No Matter Where You Are
As you can see, working remotely doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice a professional image. There are many virtual background apps that can polish your look or add some humor to it.
Searching for the easiest way to start? Install Krisp for free today and get noise cancellation to protect your virtual meetings from noise.
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