Navigate 1 - Commercial vs. Open Source Virtual Classrooms

Tools labeled both Commercial and Open Source offer the online teacher and the students to interact in real time, synchronously. A commercial software will come with a fee that is charged to the community that is purchasing the program.  Because of the fees associated with purchasing the product, there is a good amount of customer service and there is more security associated with a commercial platform, such a virus protection. 

With an open source platform, customer service is not as efficient but the software is free, causing the security not to be as reliable.  I could see using an open source platform if students are from she same subject area, but were assigned different classes wanted to form a study group. An open source platform could easily allow students to the free venue to form study groups and share documents and research. Although there are many great open source platforms, I would choose a commercial source when there are appropriate funds available and open source when there is a need to cut costs.  Several of the open source software are discontinued because they are free and lack the commercial backing.