head to head · open source
bigbluebutton vs jitsi-meet-electron
bigbluebutton has 9,266 GitHub stars, 5,982 forks, 721 open issues and last shipped yesterday. jitsi-meet-electron has 1,636 stars, 513 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. bigbluebutton leads on adoption by 466% (9,266 vs 1,636 stars). bigbluebutton is written in TypeScript under LGPL-3.0; jitsi-meet-electron is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. bigbluebutton has attracted 65% as many forks as stars, jitsi-meet-electron 31%. bigbluebutton was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (video-conferencing, webrtc), 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 | jitsi-meet-electron | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 9.3K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | LGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-10-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.0K | ⑂ 513 |
| 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 jitsi-meet-electron if
- You want the jitsi-meet-electron feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and jitsi-meet-electron 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 jitsi-meet-electron
Jitsi Meet Electron Desktop application for [Jitsi Meet] built with [Electron]. Features End to End Encryption support (BETA) Works with any Jitsi Meet deployment Built in auto updates Screen sharing Remote control Always On Top window Support for deeplinks such as jitsi meet://myroom (will open myroom on the configured Jitsi instance) or jitsi meet://jitsi.mycompany.com/myroom (will open myroom on the Jitsi instance running on jitsi.mycompany.com ) Installation Download our latest release and you're off to the races! Third Party builds Homebrew For macOS users, you can install the application using the…
read the full jitsi-meet-electron overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is bigbluebutton or jitsi-meet-electron more popular?
bigbluebutton has 9,266 GitHub stars and jitsi-meet-electron has 1,636. bigbluebutton has the larger community by that measure.
Are bigbluebutton and jitsi-meet-electron free?
Both are open source. bigbluebutton is licensed under LGPL-3.0 and jitsi-meet-electron under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between bigbluebutton and jitsi-meet-electron?
bigbluebutton is written in TypeScript and jitsi-meet-electron 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 jitsi-meet-electron?
Choose bigbluebutton if you want the larger community (9,266 stars) or its LGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose jitsi-meet-electron if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.