head to head · open source
bigbluebutton vs jitsi-meet-electron
bigbluebutton has 9,223 GitHub stars, 5,982 forks, 721 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. jitsi-meet-electron has 1,632 stars, 510 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 10 days ago. bigbluebutton leads on adoption by 465% (9,223 vs 1,632 stars). bigbluebutton is written in JavaScript 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 | ★ 9.2K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | LGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-10 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.0K | ⑂ 510 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick bigbluebutton if
- You weight community size — 9.2K stars and counting
- You want the LGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- 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 is an open source web conferencing system built for virtual classes, described by its maintainers as an open source virtual classroom designed to help teachers teach and learners learn. It lives in the JavaScript ecosystem and is distributed under the LGPL 3.0 license. The project has been developed for roughly sixteen years, carries 9,215 stars and 5,978 forks on GitHub, and its latest release is BigBlueButton 3.0. It supports real time sharing of audio, video, slides with whiteboard annotations, chat, and screen, and it ships with GreenLight as its default front end.
read the full bigbluebutton overview →
About jitsi-meet-electron
Jitsi Meet Electron is a desktop application for Jitsi Meet, built with Electron and written in TypeScript under the Apache 2.0 license. It lives in the Jitsi ecosystem, which provides open source video conferencing software, and it packages the Jitsi Meet client as a desktop window for Windows, macOS, and GNU/Linux. The project addresses the need for a dedicated desktop application that connects to existing Jitsi Meet deployments.
read the full jitsi-meet-electron overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is bigbluebutton or jitsi-meet-electron more popular?
bigbluebutton has 9,223 GitHub stars and jitsi-meet-electron has 1,632. 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 JavaScript 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 (9,223 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.