Best Self-Hosted Video Conferencing in 2026

Quick Picks

Use Case	Best Choice	Why
Best overall	Jitsi Meet	Easiest Docker deployment, full feature set, massive community
Education & webinars	BigBlueButton	Breakout rooms, whiteboard, polling — built for classrooms
Lightweight & low-resource	Galene	Handles 100 users on 0.25 CPU cores
Enterprise WebRTC platform	OpenVidu	Full Docker Compose stack with Kurento media server
Building custom video apps	LiveKit	WebRTC SDK with AI agent support, not a drop-in conferencing tool

How We Evaluated

Self-hosted video conferencing has different requirements from team chat or file sharing. The server handles real-time media routing, which means CPU and bandwidth matter more than disk space. We evaluated each platform on:

• Docker support — can you deploy with docker compose up -d?
• Resource requirements — how much RAM and CPU for a small group call?
• Features — screen sharing, recording, breakout rooms, chat
• Scalability — from 1:1 calls to 100+ participant lectures
• Community and maintenance — active development, documentation quality

Every platform below uses WebRTC for browser-based calls with no client installation needed.

The Full Ranking

1. Jitsi Meet — Best Overall

Jitsi Meet is the most widely deployed self-hosted video conferencing platform. It handles everything from 1:1 calls to 200+ participant meetings, requires no accounts for participants, and deploys as a Docker Compose stack in under 10 minutes.

The architecture uses four core containers: a web frontend, Prosody XMPP server, Jicofo (conference focus), and JVB (video bridge). Optional containers add recording (Jibri), SIP gateway (Jigasi), and transcription.

What makes it stand out: Participants join by clicking a link — no signup, no app install. The web UI is clean and intuitive. Screen sharing, chat, reactions, virtual backgrounds, and lobby mode all work out of the box.

Pros:

• Full-featured out of the box — screen sharing, recording, chat, reactions
• No account required for participants
• Official Docker Compose with pinned version tags
• Apache 2.0 license
• Massive community (35K+ GitHub stars)
• Mobile apps for iOS and Android

Cons:

• Recording (Jibri) needs a separate container with significant RAM (~4 GB alone)
• Large meetings (50+) require tuning JVB and potentially multiple video bridges
• 4+ containers even for a basic deployment

Best for: Teams, organizations, and anyone who wants a Zoom replacement that works immediately.

Resource requirements: ~4 GB RAM minimum (without recording), 2+ CPU cores. Add 4 GB for Jibri recording.

[Read our full guide: How to Self-Host Jitsi Meet]

2. BigBlueButton — Best for Education

BigBlueButton was designed specifically for online teaching. If you’re running classes, training sessions, or webinars, it has features no general-purpose video platform offers: a shared whiteboard with multi-user annotations, breakout rooms with timer controls, integrated polling, and presentation upload that converts slides server-side.

The trade-off is resource requirements. BigBlueButton recommends 16 GB RAM and 8 CPU cores for production use. It runs on bare metal or Docker but is substantially heavier than Jitsi Meet.

Pros:

• Purpose-built for education — breakout rooms, whiteboard, polling, presentations
• Multi-user whiteboard annotations in real time
• Recording and playback built in
• Used by universities worldwide (battle-tested at scale)
• LGPL 3.0 license

Cons:

• 16 GB RAM and 8 CPU cores recommended for production
• Installation is more complex than Jitsi (uses bbb-install.sh script)
• No official lightweight Docker Compose deployment
• Overkill for casual video calls

Best for: Schools, universities, corporate training teams running structured sessions with presentation sharing and breakout rooms.

Resource requirements: 16 GB RAM, 8 CPU cores (production). 8 GB RAM, 4 cores (development/testing). 500 GB disk with recording enabled.

[Compare: Jitsi Meet vs BigBlueButton]

3. OpenVidu — Best Enterprise Platform

OpenVidu is a WebRTC platform built on top of Kurento Media Server. It provides a full Docker Compose deployment with six services: OpenVidu Server, Kurento, Coturn (TURN), Redis, Nginx, and an optional application container. It sits between Jitsi (easy) and BigBlueButton (heavy) in terms of complexity.

What separates OpenVidu from Jitsi is its focus on embeddable video. You get Angular components, React hooks, and JavaScript SDKs to build video conferencing into your own applications. The standalone demo works as a drop-in conferencing tool, but the real value is programmatic control.

Pros:

• Full Docker Compose deployment
• Client SDKs for JavaScript, Angular, React, iOS, Android
• SFU architecture handles many-to-many calls efficiently
• Apache 2.0 license
• Institutional backing (Spanish government, EU-NextGenerationEU funding)
• Active development with regular releases (v3.5.0, Dec 2025)

Cons:

• More complex setup than Jitsi
• 8 GB RAM minimum
• Documentation assumes developer experience
• Smaller community than Jitsi or BigBlueButton

Best for: Organizations embedding video conferencing into custom applications, or teams that need programmatic control over call management.

Resource requirements: 8 GB RAM minimum, 2+ CPU cores.

4. Galene — Best Lightweight Option

Galene (Galène) is a videoconference server developed at Université de Paris. It’s an SFU (Selective Forwarding Unit) that routes video streams between participants without transcoding, keeping CPU usage remarkably low.

The headline number: 0.25 CPU cores can handle a 100-student lecture. Nothing else in this roundup comes close to that efficiency.

The downside: Galene has no official Docker image. You compile it from Go source. There’s no web admin panel — configuration is done through JSON files. It’s built for people comfortable with the command line.

Pros:

• Incredibly resource-efficient (0.25 CPU for 100 users)
• Screen sharing, background blur, recording support
• MIT license
• Tested in production at French universities
• Works on desktop and mobile browsers

Cons:

• No official Docker image — build from Go source
• No admin panel or web UI for configuration
• Smaller community (fewer GitHub stars, less documentation)
• JSON file configuration only

Best for: Homelab users with limited hardware, or anyone who needs to serve many participants on minimal resources.

Resource requirements: Under 1 GB RAM for most deployments. 0.25 CPU cores per 100 participants.

5. LiveKit — Best for Developers Building Custom Apps

LiveKit is not a video conferencing application — it’s a WebRTC infrastructure platform for building real-time audio/video features into your own software. Think “Twilio, but self-hosted” rather than “Zoom replacement.”

You deploy the LiveKit server, then use their SDKs (Python, Node.js, Go, Swift, Android, Flutter) to build custom experiences: video calls, livestreaming, AI voice agents, real-time transcription. The server handles media routing, room management, and participant tracking.

Pros:

• SDKs for every major platform (Python, Node.js, Go, Swift, Kotlin, Flutter)
• AI-first architecture with multimodal agent support
• Horizontal scaling across multiple nodes
• Apache 2.0 license
• Very active development (v1.9.11, Jan 2026)
• Production-grade performance (host networking, compute-optimized)

Cons:

• Not a drop-in conferencing solution — you must build the UI
• Requires Redis for multi-instance deployments
• Steep learning curve for non-developers
• Documentation assumes WebRTC familiarity

Best for: Developers building custom real-time applications with video, voice, or AI agents. Not suitable as a standalone Zoom/Meet replacement.

Resource requirements: CPU and bandwidth bound. Compute-optimized instances recommended. Requires 10 Gbps networking for production multi-instance deployments.

[Read our full guide: How to Self-Host Jitsi Meet]

Full Comparison Table

Feature	Jitsi Meet	BigBlueButton	OpenVidu	Galene	LiveKit
Docker Compose	Official	Script-based	Official	No (build from source)	Official
Min RAM	4 GB	16 GB	8 GB	<1 GB	Varies
Min CPU	2 cores	8 cores	2 cores	0.25 cores	Compute-optimized
License	Apache 2.0	LGPL 3.0	Apache 2.0	MIT	Apache 2.0
Screen sharing	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Via SDK
Recording	Yes (Jibri)	Built-in	Yes	Yes	Via Egress service
Breakout rooms	Yes	Yes (with timer)	No	No	Via SDK
Whiteboard	Basic	Multi-user annotations	No	No	No
Polling	No	Yes	No	No	No
Mobile apps	iOS, Android	Browser only	SDKs	Browser only	SDKs
No signup needed	Yes	Configurable	Configurable	Yes	N/A
SIP gateway	Yes (Jigasi)	Yes	No	No	Yes (SIP bridge)
AI features	No	No	No	No	Yes (agents framework)
GitHub stars	24K+	9K+	3K+	1K+	11K+

Replace Your Cloud Service

Cloud Service	Best Replacement	Why
Zoom	Jitsi Meet	Closest feature parity, easiest migration
Google Meet	Jitsi Meet	Link-based joining, no accounts needed
Microsoft Teams (video)	Jitsi Meet or BigBlueButton	Jitsi for general calls, BBB for structured meetings
Zoom Webinars	BigBlueButton	Presentation mode with annotations and polling

See also: Replace Zoom | Replace Google Meet

Related

• How to Self-Host Jitsi Meet
• Jitsi Meet vs BigBlueButton
• Best Self-Hosted Communication & Chat
• Replace Slack
• Replace Microsoft Teams
• Docker Compose Basics
• Reverse Proxy Setup
• Getting Started with Self-Hosting
• Best Hardware for a Home Server
• Remote Access to Your Home Server