head to head · open source
Rocket.Chat vs bigbluebutton
Rocket.Chat has 46,133 GitHub stars, 13,891 forks, 4,023 open issues and last shipped yesterday. bigbluebutton has 9,219 stars, 5,981 forks, 721 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Rocket.Chat leads on adoption by 400% (46,133 vs 9,219 stars). Rocket.Chat is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; bigbluebutton is written in JavaScript under LGPL-3.0. Rocket.Chat has attracted 30% as many forks as stars, bigbluebutton 65%. Rocket.Chat was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (collaboration, 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
| Rocket.Chat | bigbluebutton | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 46K | ★ 9.2K |
| License | Custom / other | LGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 14K | ⑂ 6.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Rocket.Chat if
- You weight community size — 46K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other 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 Rocket.Chat
Rocket.Chat is an open source, self hostable team communications platform written in TypeScript that gives organisations full ownership of their messaging, voice, and federation infrastructure instead of renting it from a closed SaaS vendor.
read the full Rocket.Chat 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 Rocket.Chat or bigbluebutton more popular?
Rocket.Chat has 46,133 GitHub stars and bigbluebutton has 9,219. Rocket.Chat has the larger community by that measure.
Are Rocket.Chat and bigbluebutton free?
Both are open source. Rocket.Chat has no licence declared in this registry, and bigbluebutton is licensed under LGPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Rocket.Chat and bigbluebutton?
Rocket.Chat 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, Rocket.Chat or bigbluebutton?
Choose Rocket.Chat if you want the larger community (46,133 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose bigbluebutton if its feature set, stack or LGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.