Key concepts for Zoom Developer Platform

We highly recommend you familiarize yourself with these concepts and terms before starting to create apps on the Zoom platform. The concepts and terms are referred to often in the app creation and app review procedures. The information is intended to help ease your work in planning, designing, and deploying apps on the Zoom platform.

Private vs beta vs published vs unlisted apps

Zoom Marketplace apps are considered as either private, beta, or published. Each label has specific meaning as to the method for distributing the app and who can add the app. It has no effect on the features you build into the app.

Private apps are the most restrictive in distribution and access. Private apps are not published to the Zoom Marketplace, and are not required to go through the app review process.

You would want to create a private app if you are building an internal tool or connector to better manage your Zoom account, or if you want to allow only your company's employees to add your app.

Access is restricted to only users under the developer's Zoom account. Distribution is done by using an authorization URL.

Beta apps are intended for testing. Access to them is broader than private apps, but still restricted. You can share beta apps with a limited number of users external to your developer Zoom Account and for a limited time.

Distribution is done by sharing an authorization URL. You must request and get approval from Zoom to share the authorization URL. We review the app's technical design documentation and supporting evidence. If approved you are then allowed to share the beta app with users external to your account.

Beta apps are not published to the Zoom Marketplace.

Published apps (or public apps) are the least restrictive. All published apps are required to go through a rigorous quality and security review before they are published to the Zoom Marketplace.

They are available on the Zoom Marketplace and are searchable by all Zoom users.

There are no restrictions or limitations around subscriber counts. We provide options for you to restrict and control user access to your app, such as:

Allowing only your company's employees to add your app.
Requiring your customers to only add the app from your domain.
Requiring your users to log into your platform before authorizing the app.

For more information, see Controlling who can add your app and Published Apps.

Unlisted apps are the same as published apps as there are no restrictions on subscriber counts and they are required to be reviewed and approved by the Marketplace team. However, unlike published apps, unlisted apps are not listed on the Marketplace.

Meta data

Unlisted apps still require app meta data, such as images, descriptions, categories, because the information is displayed on the active apps notification (AAN) and on users' added apps page. The app will fail app review if it doesn't have the required meta data.

Unlisted apps might be a preferable option for you if you want to limit access to your app and don't want it available to the general public.

If you want your app to be able to join meetings hosted by accounts other than your own, it must be a published or an unlisted app.

For more information, see Publishing your app - unlisted apps

Adding apps vs installing apps

When you add apps to Zoom, the integrations act as cloud connectors between third party services and Zoom user data. You are not installing apps onto your system. Installing generally consists of downloading a binary onto your machine. This is not the case for apps integrating with Zoom.

Who can add your app?

The app creation build allows you to choose who has the ability to add and manage your app: admins or users.

Admin-managed apps

These apps must be added by Zoom admin accounts and the account admin manages the app for all account users in the account. These apps have access to Zoom APIs that manage users, reporting, and content for a Zoom account. An example of an admin-managed app is an internal dashboard used by your company to create and manage meetings on behalf of your users.

User-managed apps

These apps are added and managed by individual users, and require authentication on behalf of each user. These apps have access to Zoom APIs that manage an individual user's content.

An example of a user-managed app is one that links to specific users to use Zoom, such as an individual's calendar extension or an app that allows a user to create meetings for themselves.

OAuth authentication is required for creating user-managed apps.