Video Conferencing
2 open source tools compared. Sorted by stars. Scroll down for our analysis.
| Tool | Stars | Velocity | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
 jitsi-meet Jitsi Meet - Secure, Simple and Scalable Video Conferences that you use as a standalone app or embed in your web application. | 29.2k | +49/wk | 73 |
 bigbluebutton A complete web conferencing system for virtual classes and more! | 9.1k | +10/wk | 57 |
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Our Analysis
Jitsi Meet is a full-featured video conferencing platform you can self-host or use instantly at meet.jit.si. No account required to join a call. HD video, screen sharing, chat, polls, virtual backgrounds, end-to-end encryption. Works in every modern browser plus native iOS and Android apps. The project is backed by 8x8, which means real engineering resources behind it, not just weekend commits. Self-hosting gives you complete control over your data, useful if you work in healthcare, government, or anywhere compliance matters. Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams are the obvious alternatives, but none of them let you own the infrastructure. For embedding video into your own app, the SDKs compete directly with Twilio and Daily.co at zero licensing cost. The catch: self-hosting Jitsi at scale is not trivial. The video bridge architecture needs tuning for large meetings, and you will spend real time on TURN server setup. The free meet.jit.si instance works fine for small teams but has no SLA.
BigBlueButton is an open source virtual classroom built specifically for online teaching. It handles real-time audio, video, screen sharing, whiteboard annotations, polling, breakout rooms, and session recording. Purpose-built for education, not repurposed general video chat. Self-hosting requires a dedicated Ubuntu 22.04 server with decent specs (8+ cores, 16GB RAM recommended). Their install script gets you running in about 30 minutes, but production deployments need attention to TURN servers, SSL, and scalability when you hit 100+ concurrent users. This is not a lightweight service. Free for any size deployment. Schools and tutors run it at zero cost. Larger institutions should budget for server infrastructure and possibly a sysadmin who understands WebRTC. Third-party hosted options exist if you want someone else to handle the infrastructure. The catch: the server requirements are substantial, and scaling for large deployments gets complex fast. If you just need basic video calls, this is overkill. It shines when you actually need the classroom features.