Alternatives to
9 Best BigBlueButton Alternatives in 2026
The best BigBlueButton alternatives depend on whether you prioritize cost, control, or a different workflow.
- Reviewed
- Sep 2026
- Open source
- 1
- Self-hosted
- 2
What you are leaving
BigBlueButton at a glance
- Pricing model
- Free and open source; no published per-seat price. Hosting and support sold separately by vendors such as Blindside Networks
- Deployment
- Self-hosted on your own servers; commercial hosted options available from third parties
- Licensing
- Open source under LGPL-3.0
- Classroom features
- Breakout rooms, multi-user whiteboard, polling, shared notes, emoji reactions and session recording
- Recording
- Session recording with playback; storage and processing run on your own infrastructure
- Integrations
- LTI integration for Moodle, Canvas, Blackboard and other learning management systems
- Community
- 9,224 GitHub stars and 5,981 forks on the core repository
- Main gripe
- You own the servers, upgrades, scaling and recording storage, which is real operational work for large cohorts
- Best for
- Schools, universities and training teams that need a self-hosted virtual classroom and want to keep student data on their own infrastructure
Compare at a glance
BigBlueButton alternatives compared
Short facts side by side. Filter by what matters to your team, then open any row for the full decision brief.
| # | Product | Overlap | Substitutability | Free? | Starting price | Self-host | Open source | Migration | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Jitsi Meet | Video meetings, screen sharing, chat and recording | Mostly replaces | Yes | — | Yes | Yes | Moderate | |
| 02 | Zoom | Video meetings, breakout rooms, screen sharing and recording | Mostly replaces | Yes | — | No | No | Hard | |
| 03 | Google Meet | Browser video meetings, screen sharing and recording | Partial replacement | Yes | $6/user/mo | No | No | Moderate | |
| 04 | Microsoft Teams | Meetings, screen sharing, breakout rooms and recording | Partial replacement | Yes | $6/user/mo | No | No | Moderate | |
| 05 | Whereby | Browser video meetings and screen sharing | Narrow overlap | Yes | $10.99/host/mo | No | No | Easy | |
| 06 | Cisco Webex | Video meetings, breakout rooms, polling and recording | Partial replacement | Yes | — | No | No | Moderate | |
| 07 | GoTo Meeting | Video meetings, screen sharing and recording | Narrow overlap | No | — | No | No | Easy | |
| 08 | TrueConf | Self-hosted video conferencing and recording | Partial replacement | Yes | — | Yes | No | Hard | |
| 09 | Jitsi as a Service | Embedded video meetings built on Jitsi | Narrow overlap | Yes | — | No | No | Moderate |
Community signal
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Frequently asked
BigBlueButton alternatives FAQ
- What is the best free open source alternative to BigBlueButton?
- Jitsi Meet is the closest open source replacement. It is fully open source, needs no account, supports screen sharing and chat, and can be self-hosted on your own servers. BigBlueButton itself remains free to self-host under LGPL-3.0, so the choice usually comes down to whether you need a virtual classroom or a general meeting tool.
- Is BigBlueButton free?
- Yes. BigBlueButton is free and open source software released under LGPL-3.0, and you can self-host it at your own infrastructure cost. There is no published per-seat price on the project site. Organizations that do not want to run servers can buy commercially hosted and supported BigBlueButton from Blindside Networks and other providers.
- Which BigBlueButton alternative is best for teaching online?
- BigBlueButton is purpose-built for virtual classrooms, with breakout rooms, multi-user whiteboard, polling, shared notes and session recording. If you want a hosted commercial product with similar teaching features, Zoom and Cisco Webex both offer education-oriented meeting plans with breakout rooms and whiteboards. TrueConf is the closest self-hosted commercial alternative for organizations that need on-premises deployment.
- Can I use Google Meet or Microsoft Teams instead of BigBlueButton?
- Yes, for general meetings. Google Meet is included with Google Workspace plans and Microsoft Teams is bundled with most Microsoft 365 business plans, so both are effectively free if you already pay for those suites. Neither is designed as a virtual classroom, so teaching-specific tools such as multi-user whiteboard, polling and shared notes are weaker or missing.
- Which BigBlueButton alternative is cheapest for small teams?
- Jitsi Meet is free and open source with no account required, and Whereby has a free plan for one host with up to 4 attendees and 30-minute meetings. BigBlueButton is also free if you self-host, but you pay for the server, bandwidth and administration time. Paid plans generally start at around $10.99 per host per month on Whereby Pro.
Switcher Reports
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Editorial method
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