head to head · open source
Plane vs bigbluebutton
Plane has 59,642 GitHub stars, 5,808 forks, 1,103 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. bigbluebutton has 9,223 stars, 5,982 forks, 721 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Plane leads on adoption by 547% (59,642 vs 9,223 stars). Plane is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; bigbluebutton is written in JavaScript under LGPL-3.0. Plane has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, bigbluebutton 65%. bigbluebutton was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| Plane | bigbluebutton | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 60K | ★ 9.2K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | LGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.8K | ⑂ 6.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Plane if
- You weight community size — 60K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick bigbluebutton if
- You want the bigbluebutton feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the LGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and bigbluebutton fits your workflow better
About Plane
Plane is an open source project management platform for teams that need to track issues, run cycles, and manage product roadmaps without handing their data to a proprietary SaaS vendor, and it is aimed at engineering, product, and operations teams that would otherwise pay for Jira, Linear, ClickUp, or Asana.
read the full Plane overview →
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Plane or bigbluebutton more popular?
Plane has 59,642 GitHub stars and bigbluebutton has 9,223. Plane has the larger community by that measure.
Are Plane and bigbluebutton free?
Both are open source. Plane is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and bigbluebutton under LGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Plane and bigbluebutton?
Plane is written in TypeScript and bigbluebutton in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Plane or bigbluebutton?
Choose Plane if you want the larger community (59,642 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose bigbluebutton if its feature set, stack or LGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.