head to head · open source
cobalt vs bigbluebutton
cobalt has 45,722 GitHub stars, 4,031 forks, 269 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. bigbluebutton has 9,263 stars, 5,982 forks, 721 open issues and last shipped yesterday. cobalt leads on adoption by 394% (45,722 vs 9,263 stars). cobalt is written in Svelte under AGPL-3.0; bigbluebutton is written in TypeScript under LGPL-3.0. cobalt has attracted 9% 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. 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
| cobalt | bigbluebutton | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 46K | ★ 9.3K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | LGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Svelte | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-04-06 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.0K | ⑂ 6.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick cobalt if
- You weight community size — 46K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Svelte
- 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 TypeScript
- You evaluated both and bigbluebutton fits your workflow better
About cobalt
best way to save what you love cobalt.tools 💬 community discord server 🐦 twitter 🦋 bluesky cobalt is a media downloader that doesn't piss you off. it's friendly, efficient, and doesn't have ads, trackers, paywalls or other nonsense. paste the link, get the file, move on. that simple, just how it should be. cobalt monorepo this monorepo includes source code for api, frontend, and related packages: api tree & readme web tree & readme packages tree it also includes documentation in the docs tree: how to run a cobalt instance how to protect a cobalt instance cobalt api instance environment variables cobalt api…
read the full cobalt overview →
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is cobalt or bigbluebutton more popular?
cobalt has 45,722 GitHub stars and bigbluebutton has 9,263. cobalt has the larger community by that measure.
Are cobalt and bigbluebutton free?
Both are open source. cobalt is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and bigbluebutton under LGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between cobalt and bigbluebutton?
cobalt is written in Svelte and bigbluebutton 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, cobalt or bigbluebutton?
Choose cobalt if you want the larger community (45,722 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.