BigBlueButton vs Google Meet
BigBlueButton and Google Meet are both video conferencing software. BigBlueButton is open source under LGPL-3.0, with 9.3k GitHub stars. Google Meet is a commercial product from Google.
Which to pick
- Pick BigBlueButton when
- A school, university or training provider needs online classes integrated with Moodle, Canvas or another LMS on its own servers.
- Pick Google Meet when
- You use Google Workspace and want meetings that guests can join from a browser with no install.
Side by side
A virtual classroom server with audio, video, slides with whiteboard annotation, polls, shared notes, breakout rooms, recordings and learning analytics.
Browser-based video meetings linked to Google Calendar, with recording, captions and breakout rooms on paid Workspace plans.
Installation expects a dedicated Ubuntu server with specific versions and plenty of CPU and bandwidth; upgrades between major versions are significant work.
Free calls are time-limited for groups, and recording and larger meetings need higher Workspace tiers.
Production-ready (both)
Self-hosted server
Cloud service and mobile app
TypeScript, Scala, FreeSWITCH, mediasoup, Redis and MongoDB
Not published
Open source, LGPL-3.0 (weak copyleft)
Closed source, sold by Google
You can use it inside a product you sell; changes you make to its own files must be shared.
Closed source: you use it under the maker's terms and cannot change or resell the code.
9.3k GitHub stars
4k Wikipedia readers a month on phones
Established: started 16 years ago, latest release v4.0.1.
Not known
Other comparisons
More video conferencing software
Both sides were judged on 2026-11-03 from makers' descriptions, Wikipedia, READMEs and GitHub data. License, age and popularity lines are worked out directly.