BigBlueButton: Complete open-source web conferencing system
BigBlueButton is a self-hosted video conferencing tool. Complete open-source web conferencing system.
Why self-host BigBlueButton
Self-hosting BigBlueButton removes the dependency on a third-party service. For anyone who values data ownership, that matters more than convenience in the long run.
What it does
BigBlueButton falls into the Video Conferencing category of self-hosted software. It is designed to be deployed on your own infrastructure, whether that is a home server, a VPS, or a local machine running Docker.
Community traction
The project has 8k stars on GitHub, which is a reasonable proxy for how widely it is used. Active repositories tend to ship bug fixes faster and have better documentation than projects that stall after the initial release.
Deployment
Getting BigBlueButton running usually takes under an hour if you have a working Docker setup. The official documentation covers the basic deployment steps.
Alternatives
If BigBlueButton does not fit your needs, common alternatives include Zoom. The self-hosted versions of these tools often differ in resource requirements and feature focus, so it is worth testing the one that matches your workload.
Maturity
The current release is 2.7.11. The project has moved past early development and tends to ship stable, documented releases.
License
It is licensed under LGPL-3.0, making it freely available for personal and commercial use.
Links
Whether you are just starting with self-hosting or adding to an existing setup, BigBlueButton is a reasonable pick in the video conferencing space.