head to head · open source
bigbluebutton vs chitchatter
bigbluebutton has 9,266 GitHub stars, 5,982 forks, 721 open issues and last shipped yesterday. chitchatter has 2,344 stars, 451 forks, 53 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. bigbluebutton leads on adoption by 295% (9,266 vs 2,344 stars). bigbluebutton is written in TypeScript under LGPL-3.0; chitchatter is written in TypeScript under GPL-2.0. bigbluebutton has attracted 65% as many forks as stars, chitchatter 19%. bigbluebutton was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (video-conferencing), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| bigbluebutton | chitchatter | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 9.3K | ★ 2.3K |
| License | LGPL-3.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.0K | ⑂ 451 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick bigbluebutton if
- You weight community size — 9.3K stars and counting
- You want the LGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick chitchatter if
- You want the chitchatter feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and chitchatter fits your workflow better
About bigbluebutton
BigBlueButton ============= BigBlueButton is an open source virtual classroom designed to help teachers teach and learners learn. BigBlueButton supports real time sharing of audio, video, slides (with whiteboard annotations), chat, and the screen. Instructors can engage remote students with polling, emojis, multi user whiteboards, shared notes, and breakout rooms. During the session, BigBlueButton generates analytics that are visible to moderators in the Learning Analytics Dashboard. Presenters can record and playback content for later sharing with others. We designed BigBlueButton for online learning, it can be…
read the full bigbluebutton overview →
About chitchatter
Chitchatter Logo provided by @ramyashreeshetty Chitchatter is a free (as in both price and freedom) communication tool. Designed to be the simplest way to connect with others privately and securely, it is: Fully open source (licensed under GPL v2) Peer to peer Whenever possible, otherwise a TURN server is used to ensure reliable peer connection End to end encrypted (via WebRTC) Ephemeral Message content is never persisted to disk on either the client or server Decentralized No API server required . Chitchatter works completely without an API server all that's required for basic functionality is availability of…
read the full chitchatter overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is bigbluebutton or chitchatter more popular?
bigbluebutton has 9,266 GitHub stars and chitchatter has 2,344. bigbluebutton has the larger community by that measure.
Are bigbluebutton and chitchatter free?
Both are open source. bigbluebutton is licensed under LGPL-3.0 and chitchatter under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between bigbluebutton and chitchatter?
bigbluebutton is written in TypeScript and chitchatter in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, bigbluebutton or chitchatter?
Choose bigbluebutton if you want the larger community (9,266 stars) or its LGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose chitchatter if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.