What is BigBlueButton used for?

BigBlueButton is an open-source virtual classroom and web conferencing system with real-time audio, video, slides, whiteboard, chat, polling and breakout rooms for online teaching. It is a good fit for online classes and virtual classrooms, one-to-one tutoring sessions, and self-hosted meetings for training organizations.

Is BigBlueButton open source?

Yes. BigBlueButton is open source under the LGPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton and is written mainly in JavaScript.

Is BigBlueButton free?

Yes. BigBlueButton is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

Can I self-host BigBlueButton?

Yes. BigBlueButton can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What is BigBlueButton an alternative to?

BigBlueButton is an open-source alternative to Zoom, Webex, Adobe Connect and GoTo Meeting. Other open-source alternatives to Zoom include plugNmeet, Jitsi Meet and La Suite Meet.

Is BigBlueButton actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to BigBlueButton was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is v3.0.38, published on 1 October 2026. The project has 9.2k stars on GitHub.

BigBlueButton: open-source alternative to Zoom, Webex

About BigBlueButton

BigBlueButton is an open-source web conferencing system designed for online learning, intended to help teachers teach and learners learn. Participants can share audio, video, slides (with whiteboard annotations), chat messages and their screen in real time, and can also be used for many other meeting types beyond education.

To keep remote students involved, instructors can use polls, emoji reactions, whiteboards that several people can draw on, shared notes and breakout rooms. During a session it generates analytics shown to moderators on a Learning Analytics Dashboard, and presenters can record sessions for later playback and sharing. The README lists online tutoring, flipped classrooms, group collaboration and online classes as the educational scenarios it was built for. Its topics reference WebRTC.

The current major release is BigBlueButton 3.0, which can be installed on Ubuntu 22.04 with the bbb-install.sh script, and full documentation covers architecture, features, the API and GreenLight, the default front end. The software is licensed under LGPL-3.0, while the name and logo are trademarks of BigBlueButton Inc. It suits schools, universities and training providers that want to host their own conferencing.

Key features

Real-time audio, video and screen sharing
Slides with whiteboard annotations
Polling, emojis and breakout rooms
Multi-user whiteboard and shared notes
Learning Analytics Dashboard
Session recording and playback
GreenLight default front end

Good fit for

→Online classes and virtual classrooms
→One-to-one tutoring sessions
→Self-hosted meetings for training organizations

Built with: JavaScript
Tags: web-conferencing; virtual-classroom; webrtc; video-conferencing; education; self-hosted; whiteboard; e-learning

BigBlueButton: questions and answers

What is BigBlueButton used for?: BigBlueButton is an open-source virtual classroom and web conferencing system with real-time audio, video, slides, whiteboard, chat, polling and breakout rooms for online teaching. It is a good fit for online classes and virtual classrooms, one-to-one tutoring sessions, and self-hosted meetings for training organizations.
Is BigBlueButton open source?: Yes. BigBlueButton is open source under the LGPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton and is written mainly in JavaScript.
Is BigBlueButton free?: Yes. BigBlueButton is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host BigBlueButton?: Yes. BigBlueButton can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is BigBlueButton an alternative to?: BigBlueButton is an open-source alternative to Zoom, Webex, Adobe Connect and GoTo Meeting. Other open-source alternatives to Zoom include plugNmeet, Jitsi Meet and La Suite Meet.
Is BigBlueButton actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to BigBlueButton was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is v3.0.38, published on 1 October 2026. The project has 9.2k stars on GitHub.