head to head · open source
Jitsi vs bigbluebutton
Jitsi has 29,931 GitHub stars, 8,026 forks, 141 open issues and last shipped yesterday. bigbluebutton has 9,219 stars, 5,981 forks, 721 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Jitsi leads on adoption by 225% (29,931 vs 9,219 stars). Jitsi is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; bigbluebutton is written in JavaScript under LGPL-3.0. Jitsi has attracted 27% as many forks as stars, bigbluebutton 65%. Jitsi was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (video, 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
| Jitsi | bigbluebutton | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 9.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | LGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.0K | ⑂ 6.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Jitsi if
- You weight community size — 30K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 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 Jitsi
Jitsi Meet is an open source video conferencing platform built on WebRTC standards, designed for privacy focused, account free video calls. It operates as a standalone web application or embeddable component, supporting both browser based and native mobile usage without requiring user accounts to join meetings. The project lives in the video communication ecosystem, competing directly with proprietary services like Zoom, Google Meet, and Slack’s built in calling.
read the full Jitsi 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 Jitsi or bigbluebutton more popular?
Jitsi has 29,931 GitHub stars and bigbluebutton has 9,219. Jitsi has the larger community by that measure.
Are Jitsi and bigbluebutton free?
Both are open source. Jitsi is licensed under Apache-2.0 and bigbluebutton under LGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Jitsi and bigbluebutton?
Jitsi 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, Jitsi or bigbluebutton?
Choose Jitsi if you want the larger community (29,931 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose bigbluebutton if its feature set, stack or LGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.