head to head
Zoom vs Jitsi
Jitsi is the open source alternative to Zoom — video conferencing platform. Here is the honest comparison.
Yes — Jitsi is a viable free replacement for Zoom. Jitsi is open source under Apache-2.0, written in TypeScript, with 29,931 GitHub stars, 8,026 forks and 141 open issues; it was last pushed 7 hours ago. Zoom costs from $15, while self-hosting Jitsi carries no licence fee — the trade is your operational time instead of a subscription. 0 other open source Zoom alternatives are tracked here. Replacement criteria on this page: 4 reasons to move to Jitsi and 3 reasons to stay on Zoom.
choose Jitsi if
- Your Zoom bill is growing with seats or usage
- You need your data in a format and server you control
- Your compliance posture requires auditing the code that touches sensitive data
- You have (or can rent) a server and basic Docker comfort
stick with Zoom if
- You need the polished onboarding and support SLAs of a commercial vendor
- Your team has zero capacity to operate software, even self-hosted-simple
- You depend on a Zoom integration ecosystem that the OSS alternatives have not replicated
Side by side
| Jitsi (open source) | Zoom | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free (self-hosted) | Free / $15.99-$21.59/user/month |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Proprietary |
| Source code | Public, auditable | Closed |
| Self-hosting | Yes — jitsi/jitsi-meet | Cloud only |
| Data ownership | Your server, your format | Vendor's cloud |
| Community | ★ 30K · ⑂ 8.0K | — |
| Built with | TypeScript | — |
Why people look for a Zoom alternative
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 →
last updated nightly · ranking method: github stars, live-tracked
Frequently asked questions
Is Jitsi a good replacement for Zoom?
Jitsi is an open source alternative to Zoom (Video conferencing platform). It is written in TypeScript and licensed under Apache-2.0, with 29,931 GitHub stars.
Is Jitsi free compared to Zoom?
Yes. Jitsi is open source — there is no licence fee, and you can self-host it. Zoom is typically a paid subscription, so the trade-off is licence cost against the operational work of running it yourself.
How do I migrate from Zoom to Jitsi?
Migration effort depends on the data formats involved. Check Jitsi's documentation for import options, and compare the feature table above to confirm the capabilities you depend on are covered before switching.