BigBlueButton
An open-source virtual classroom with slides, polls, whiteboards and breakout rooms.
Instead of Zoom, Teams for classes
Screenshot from bigbluebutton.org, taken 2026-10-30, shown to help you recognise the tool. It belongs to its maker. Ask us to remove it.
Teachers who want more than a grid of faces get a lot from BigBlueButton, and its repository describes it as an open-source virtual classroom designed to help teachers teach and learners learn. It handles audio, video, slides, chat, screen sharing, polling, whiteboards, shared notes, breakout rooms and recording, and it can be used beyond education. The licence is LGPL-3.0.
BigBlueButton scores a 4 on lock-in and a 3 on footprint, self-direction, power, longevity and delivery.
You run it yourself, and the page names Ubuntu 22.04 and an install script that it says takes about 30 minutes. BigBlueButton Inc owns the trademark, the page says nothing about funding, and it makes no encryption claims, so we make none either.
- A virtual classroom with slides, polls, whiteboards and breakout rooms
- LGPL-3.0, installed on Ubuntu 22.04 with a script
- The page states no funding and makes no encryption claims
What stands out
Do you make BigBlueButton? Get the badge for your site
This badge reports a dated review. It is not a certification and it costs nothing. Link it to this page and leave the numbers alone: the image always shows the current score.
For dark backgrounds, use bigbluebutton-dark.svg in place of bigbluebutton-light.svg.
For comparison, we also reviewed Zoom (16/30) as a benchmark.
Other tools for “meet without an account or a landlord”
JamiPeer-to-peer calls and messages with no central server, from a GNU project.
Jitsi MeetFree video meetings in a browser or app, with no account needed and a server you can host yourself.- GalèneA videoconference server light enough to run on a small machine.
Element CallGroup video calls on the open Matrix network, from the makers of Element.