head to head · open source
Jitsi vs chat
Jitsi has 30,188 GitHub stars, 8,121 forks, 141 open issues and last shipped yesterday. chat has 13,547 stars, 2,093 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. Jitsi leads on adoption by 123% (30,188 vs 13,547 stars). Jitsi is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; chat is written in Go under GPL-3.0. Jitsi has attracted 27% as many forks as stars, chat 15%. Jitsi 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
| Jitsi | chat | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 14K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.1K | ⑂ 2.1K |
| 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 chat if
- You want the chat feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and chat fits your workflow better
About Jitsi
Jitsi Meet Jitsi Meet is a set of Open Source projects which empower users to use and deploy video conferencing platforms with state of the art video quality and features. Amongst others here are the main features Jitsi Meet offers: Support for all current browsers Mobile applications Web and native SDKs for integration HD audio and video Content sharing Raise hand and reactions Chat with private conversations Polls Virtual backgrounds And many more! Using Jitsi Meet Using Jitsi Meet is straightforward, as it's browser based. Head over to meet.jit.si and give it a try. It's scalable and free to use. All you need…
read the full Jitsi overview →
About chat
Tinode Instant Messaging Server Instant messaging full stack. Backend in pure Go (license GPL 3.0), clients for Android (Java), iOS (Swift), and web (ReactJS), as well as gRPC client support for C++, C , Go, Java, Node, PHP, Python, Ruby, Objective C, etc (all clients licensed under Apache 2.0). Wire transport is JSON over websocket (long polling is also available) or protobuf with gRPC. This is beta quality software: feature complete and stable but probably with a few bugs or missing features. Follow instructions to install and run or use one of the cloud services below. Read API documentation. Tinode is not…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Jitsi or chat more popular?
Jitsi has 30,188 GitHub stars and chat has 13,547. Jitsi has the larger community by that measure.
Are Jitsi and chat free?
Both are open source. Jitsi is licensed under Apache-2.0 and chat under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Jitsi and chat?
Jitsi is written in TypeScript and chat in Go. 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 chat?
Choose Jitsi if you want the larger community (30,188 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose chat if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.