head to head · open source
bigbluebutton vs SubEthaEdit
bigbluebutton has 9,223 GitHub stars, 5,982 forks, 721 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. SubEthaEdit has 1,431 stars, 115 forks, 93 open issues and last shipped 11 months ago. bigbluebutton leads on adoption by 545% (9,223 vs 1,431 stars). bigbluebutton is written in JavaScript under LGPL-3.0; SubEthaEdit is written in Objective-C under MIT. bigbluebutton has attracted 65% as many forks as stars, SubEthaEdit 8%. bigbluebutton was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (collaboration), 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 | SubEthaEdit | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 9.2K | ★ 1.4K |
| License | LGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | Objective-C |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2025-11-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.0K | ⑂ 115 |
| 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 SubEthaEdit if
- You want the SubEthaEdit feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Objective-C
- You evaluated both and SubEthaEdit 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 SubEthaEdit
SubEthaEdit is a general purpose plain text editor for macOS, widely known for its live collaboration feature, and it is built for writers, developers and teams who need several people editing the same document at the same time.
read the full SubEthaEdit overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is bigbluebutton or SubEthaEdit more popular?
bigbluebutton has 9,223 GitHub stars and SubEthaEdit has 1,431. bigbluebutton has the larger community by that measure.
Are bigbluebutton and SubEthaEdit free?
Both are open source. bigbluebutton is licensed under LGPL-3.0 and SubEthaEdit under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between bigbluebutton and SubEthaEdit?
bigbluebutton is written in JavaScript and SubEthaEdit in Objective-C. 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 SubEthaEdit?
Choose bigbluebutton if you want the larger community (9,223 stars) or its LGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose SubEthaEdit if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.