Jitsi Meet is a free, open source video conferencing tool you can use hosted or self host, a private, no cost alternative, suited to developers and privacy conscious teams wanting open, self hosted video. It provides browser based video meetings with screen sharing, chat and recording, with no account required to use the free hosted service at meet.jit.si, and as open source software it can be self hosted on your own servers for full control over data and privacy, or embedded into your own products via its API and SDK. Backed by the community and 8x8, Jitsi Meet suits developers, privacy conscious teams and those wanting free, open, self hostable or embeddable video without licence costs. For open source, self hosted meetings, Jitsi Meet is a leading choice.
Jitsi Meet's distinction is being free, open source and self hostable, with no account and full control. It offers browser based meetings at no cost and no sign up on its hosted service, and as open source it can be self hosted for complete data control and privacy, or embedded into other products, which privacy conscious and technical teams value and commercial tools do not offer for free. That free, open, self hostable nature sets it apart.
Jitsi Meet is best for developers, privacy conscious teams, and anyone wanting free, open source video meetings they can use with no account, self host for full control, or embed into their own products. It suits open, self hosted and no cost needs. It is a weaker fit for organisations wanting the most polished, feature rich commercial meetings and support, where Zoom fits, or those wanting meetings bundled with Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, where Teams or Google Meet fit.
The core strengths are free, browser based video meetings with screen sharing, chat and recording, no account required on the hosted service, open source self hosting for full data control and privacy, and an API and SDK to embed video into your own products. Jitsi Meet offers no licence costs and full control. Its free, open, self hostable and embeddable nature are its defining advantages.
Jitsi Meet is free and open source. The hosted service at meet.jit.si is free to use with no account, and self hosting the open source software costs only your own infrastructure. For commercial, managed or embedded use, 8x8 offers Jitsi as a Service (JaaS) with paid tiers. So basic use is entirely free. Details are on the Jitsi Meet site.
Jitsi Meet offers an API, SDK and embeddable iframe (and Jitsi as a Service) to integrate video into other applications and websites, plus open source extensibility. Its embeddability and open source nature, which let developers add video to their own products and self host, support its developer and privacy focused positioning, though it lacks the broad app marketplace of commercial tools.
Free, open, self hostable video is the signature strength: Jitsi Meet offers browser based meetings at no cost with no account, and as open source can be self hosted for full data control and privacy or embedded into products, which privacy conscious and technical teams value. For such users, this freedom and control are the main reason to choose Jitsi Meet.
Jitsi Meet is well rated for being free, open and private, and easy to start a meeting with no account, with community support (and commercial support via 8x8 JaaS), though it is less feature rich and polished than Zoom and self hosting takes effort. Its reviews praise the free, open, no account nature, with fewer features and self hosting effort the main considerations.
For developers, privacy conscious teams and anyone wanting free, open source video they can use with no account, self host or embed, Jitsi Meet is an excellent choice. The main caution is that it is less polished and feature rich than Zoom and self hosting takes effort, so organisations wanting the most polished commercial meetings may prefer Zoom, and bundled needs Teams or Google Meet, but for open source, self hosted meetings Jitsi Meet leads.
These video conferencing tools come up most often against Jitsi Meet.
Widely used video meetings and webinars platform
Browser-based video meetings in Google Workspace
Meetings and video calls in Microsoft 365