There are hundreds of video conferencing tools out there, and there are more to come in the upcoming time. We all know about ZOOM, Google Meet, Microsoft teams, and skype and the list goes on and on.
Also we all love zoom for its simple design and it is the most famous tool among all others. But as many of us know that it’s been said that its servers are located in somewhere in China where the video traffic could be monitored by the Chinese government and you get then the privacy issues and security issues of your data or the Chinese government spying on you and whatnot, but we are not here for that.
There are many people in the world who wish to use other tools which are free to use which are trustworthy to use and also let us control our own data as well. If you also think this same then there are few open-source tools out there that are completely free to use and few of them allow you to set up your own servers as well to control your video traffic and don’t have to worry about someone might spy on you. If that sounds interesting there following are such tools which I personally used and also integrated with an application which we are working on in my current company.
BigBlueButton
BigBlueButton is an open-source web conferencing tool primarily used for education purposes. It is based on WebRTC (If you are wondering what is webRTC is then it’s a simple web protocol by which you can send data from one browser to another browser without having a middle server to interfere. WebRTC is capable of sending real-time video, audio streams, and other generic data.) If you want to teach someone online with a whiteboard integrated along with the video conferencing tool then BigBlueButton is for you. If you want to use it just as a regular tool then it is also fine. The place where I work right now is an ed-tech software building company where we are building an LMS for schools, so I got a chance to integrate BigBlueButton on our own servers. What makes BigBlueButto a great tool s that it is capable of handling around 150 users in a single meeting on a single server. If you wish to use or integrate BigBlueButton on your servers as well visit here
Jitsi
Jitsi Meet is another open-source video platform which also based on WebRTC protocol. It is a simple and really awesome tool that is very similar to zoom. So if you are shifting from zoom and looking for something opensource tool then jitsi is for you. It can handle around 75 to 80 people in a single meeting without compromising the video quality considering everyone is having a decent interenet connection. Unlike BigBlueButton it does not include any whiteboard so if you are looking for a simple tool then jitsi is a good choice. You can host a server and run the jitsi tool on any Debian/Ubuntu, and openSUSE based machines and also on docker as well. You don't have to worry about anyone listening to your data as you will host and control your own data. Jitsi also provides an option for you to record your meeting and after the meeting ends it will ask you to upload on your dropbox or download on the same machine where you have hosted your jitsi tool. It's a bit complicated to integrate on yourself if you don’t have much networking and linux troubleshooting experience. You may get easily confused with terms like prosody, Videobridge, jicofo, and whatnot. So if you feel comfortable building or installing jitsi on your own machine you can follow this.
Mconf
Mconf is an open-source web conference system built on top of (and around of) BigBlueButton. Mconf is composed of several components, among them are Mconf-Live, a customized version of BigBlueButton that includes several new features, and Mconf-Web, a web portal where people can collaborate asynchronously, schedule and participate in web conferences. Personally, I never user Mconf but I keep on hearing about it on the internet, and also it's great because it is based on BigBlueButton which I love so much.
Following is a list of few more tools which are also opensource
Jami
OpenMeetings
ezTalks Cloud Meeting
Riot
WebHuddle
Summary- Above all tools are awesome for video conferencing and they serve a great service but if I choose one tool I like the most then it is very difficult to choose from. But still, if I have to choose then I would go with BigBlueButton. BigBlueButton not just offers you with opensource but also is a very great and efficient tool to use. Also, It comes with a whiteboard which will always come in handy if you are a teacher or someone who explains stuff on the whiteboard. You don't have to have a separate app for mobile users it’s webview on mobile works just perfect. Second, on my list would be jitsi. Jitsi is also a great tool but if you plan to host your own server like BigBlueButton then you will need a bit higher expertise in Linux administrative field. Though with a few hours spending on different terms you are good to go. Others I have not tried much except Mconf. Others are also great if you would like to have options.
