Jitsi

Overview

Jitsi began in 2003 as a SIP communications software project with headquarters in the United States, was acquired by Atlassian between 2015 and 2018, and is now maintained by 8x8. It is one of the most popular open-source solutions in the video conferencing space. Jitsi Meet is built on WebRTC, so participants join meetings from a browser without registering an account or installing a client, and it offers fully self-hosted deployment plus an end-to-end encryption option, favored by privacy-conscious teams that value data sovereignty.

As an open-source community project, Jitsi provides a free public service via meet.jit.si while letting any organization deploy a complete conferencing infrastructure on its own servers. Compared with commercial products such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams, Jitsi emphasizes freedom, control, and low cost, holding a unique position in the open-source and commercial software market and remote collaboration scenarios.

Key Strengths

• Free and registration-free: the meet.jit.si public service is free with no account required; meetings start or join via a link.
• Fully open source and self-hostable: all code is open source and can be deployed on your own servers, keeping data on-premises to meet sovereignty and compliance needs.
• Optional encryption: supports an end-to-end encryption (E2EE) option and remains compatible with standard DTLS-SRTP transport encryption for a balance of security and compatibility.
• Zero-client installation: based on WebRTC, participants join from any modern browser without downloading software.
• Cost-effective scaling: self-hosting only costs the server, making large meetings far cheaper than commercial platforms.

Product Ecosystem

Jitsi Meet

The core WebRTC video conferencing app supporting screen sharing, chat, live streaming, and raise-hand features via web or mobile, serving as the primary tool for daily meetings.

Jitsi Videobridge

An open-source SFU (selective forwarding unit) server that forwards and mixes multiple audio/video streams, forming the underlying component that supports large-scale meetings.

Jitsi Conference Focus (Jicofo)

The conference focus component that manages participants, media sessions, and room lifecycles, coordinating with Videobridge for meeting orchestration.

Jitsi Desktop

A desktop SIP client supporting SIP calls, video calls, and instant messaging, and one of Jitsi's earliest core products.

Mobile & Integrations

Offers iOS/Android apps and basic integration with video streaming distribution and tools such as Slack.

Limitations

• Limited public instance: meet.jit.si offers no recording, SLA, or commercial support, with stability depending on community infrastructure, so important meetings need a risk assessment.
• High self-hosting barrier: maintaining Videobridge, Jicofo, TURN servers, and other components raises network and server operations costs; evaluate with the self-hosting guide.
• Fewer commercial features: compared with Zoom and Microsoft Teams, scheduling integrations, whiteboarding, enterprise user management, and support capabilities are missing.
• Large-meeting performance sensitivity: hundreds of participants demand high bandwidth and server capacity, with visible audio/video fluctuation on weak networks, requiring careful node and bandwidth planning.

Use Cases

• Privacy- and sovereignty-minded teams (★★★★★): end-to-end encryption and self-hosting keep data fully controlled, suiting compliance-heavy organizations.
• Open-source and budget-sensitive users (★★★★★): a free public service plus open-source deployment delivers full meeting capability at near-zero cost.
• Self-hosted enterprise deployment （★★★★☆）: deploy Jitsi Meet on the corporate intranet for internal meetings and training.
• Registration-free ad hoc meetings （★★★★☆）: join via a link, ideal for external communication and impromptu collaboration.
• Enterprise management needs （★★☆☆☆）: when scheduling integration, whiteboarding, and large-enterprise management are required, Zoom or Microsoft Teams fit better.

Pricing

Note: Jitsi open-source software itself is free; the above reflects deployment and hosting cost references.

FAQ

• Is Jitsi free? Are there limits? The meet.jit.si public service is free and registration-free, but limited by public instance resources and offers no recording or SLA; self-hosting or 8x8 managed hosting provides stable guarantees; see remote team toolchain.

• Are Jitsi meetings encrypted? Yes, an end-to-end encryption (E2EE) option is supported, with DTLS-SRTP transport encryption by default; some features (such as recording bridges) may be limited under E2EE mode; see data encryption practices.

• How do I self-host Jitsi? Deploy the Jitsi Meet bundle (Videobridge, Jicofo, Prosody) via Docker, preparing a domain, SSL certificate, and TURN service; see the self-hosting guide and official documentation.

• How many people can join a Jitsi meeting? It depends on server capacity; self-hosted environments can support 100+ participants per meeting, while the public instance has limited capacity, so large meetings should be self-hosted; see cloud server configuration guide.

• Jitsi vs Zoom, which should I choose? Choose Jitsi for privacy, self-hosting, and low cost; choose Zoom or Microsoft Teams when scheduling integration, whiteboarding, enterprise management, and commercial support are needed.