Jitsi Meet vs Zoom

Why Switch from Zoom to Jitsi Meet?

Zoom became the default video conferencing tool during the pandemic, but its privacy track record has been troubling. From “Zoombombing” incidents to misleading claims about end-to-end encryption, Zoom has faced repeated scrutiny. As a US-based company, all meeting data flows through American servers subject to the CLOUD Act, and Zoom’s privacy policy allows broad data collection including meeting content for AI training purposes.

Jitsi Meet offers a radically different model. Originally developed in France and now maintained by an active open-source community with backing from 8x8, Jitsi Meet lets you start a video call instantly — no account required, no software to install, no data harvested. For organizations that want full control, you can self-host Jitsi on your own European servers, ensuring meeting data never leaves your infrastructure.

The project’s open-source nature means the code is fully auditable. There are no hidden data collection mechanisms, no proprietary algorithms analyzing your conversations, and no corporate interests mining your meeting behavior for profit.

Feature Comparison

Feature	Jitsi Meet	Zoom
End-to-end encryption	✅ Available (insertable streams)	✅ Available (paid plans)
No account required	✅ Instant meetings	❌ Host needs account
Self-hostable	✅ Full control	❌ SaaS only
Open source	✅ Fully	❌ Proprietary
Recording	✅ Via Jibri (self-hosted)	✅ Cloud and local
Screen sharing	✅ Yes	✅ Yes
Chat during meetings	✅ Yes	✅ Yes
Virtual backgrounds	✅ Yes	✅ Yes
Breakout rooms	⚠️ Self-hosted only	✅ All paid plans
Data location	Your choice (self-host) 🇪🇺	United States 🇺🇸

Pricing

Jitsi Meet’s pricing is hard to beat — the core product is entirely free:

• Jitsi Meet (meet.jit.si): Free — unlimited meetings, no account needed, community-hosted
• Jitsi Self-hosted: Free — you run the server, full control over data and capacity
• JaaS (Jitsi as a Service): From $99/month — managed hosting by 8x8 with SLA and support
• Zoom Basic: Free — 40-minute limit on group meetings, 100 participants
• Zoom Pro: $13.33/user/month — 30-hour meetings, 100 participants
• Zoom Business: $18.33/user/month — 300 participants, admin features
• Zoom Enterprise: Custom pricing

With Jitsi, you never hit a paywall for basic video conferencing. Self-hosting eliminates recurring per-user costs entirely, making it dramatically cheaper for organizations of any size.

Privacy & Data Sovereignty

Jitsi Meet was built with privacy as a core principle, not an afterthought:

• The entire codebase is open source and available on GitHub for anyone to audit
• Self-hosting means your meeting data stays on your servers in the jurisdiction of your choice
• End-to-end encryption is available using insertable streams technology
• No account creation means no personal data is collected to start a meeting
• No meeting metadata is stored on public instances beyond the session duration
• No AI features that analyze or train on your meeting content
• The community-hosted meet.jit.si instance processes data in Europe

For organizations subject to GDPR, self-hosted Jitsi is one of the few video conferencing solutions that offers verifiable, complete data sovereignty.

Migration Guide

Switching from Zoom to Jitsi Meet can be done immediately for most use cases:

1. Choose your Jitsi approach: For quick meetings, simply visit meet.jit.si — no setup needed. For organizational use, consider self-hosting on a European VPS (Hetzner, OVH, Scaleway) or subscribing to JaaS for managed hosting. (5 minutes for public instance, 30-60 minutes for self-hosting)
2. Create your first meeting by visiting meet.jit.si and typing a unique room name. Share the generated link with participants via email, chat, or calendar invite. No accounts are needed for anyone. (2 minutes)
3. Configure your settings by clicking the gear icon to set your display name, audio/video preferences, and enable end-to-end encryption if desired. Bookmark your preferred settings for future meetings. (5 minutes)
4. Integrate with your calendar by adding Jitsi meeting links to your existing Google Calendar, Outlook, or other calendar system. Simply paste the Jitsi URL in the location or video conferencing field. (5 minutes)
5. Train your team by sharing a brief guide explaining how to join meetings via browser link. Emphasize that no downloads or accounts are required — this is usually the biggest positive surprise for teams switching from Zoom. (15 minutes)
6. Cancel your Zoom subscription once your team is comfortable with Jitsi. If you self-host, configure Jibri for recording capabilities and set up any custom branding. (5 minutes for cancellation, optional extra time for self-hosted features)

Estimated total time: 15 minutes for basic usage, 1-2 hours for self-hosted deployment. Difficulty level: Easy for public instance usage, moderate for self-hosting.

Real-World Use Cases

A French university with 2,000 students deployed a self-hosted Jitsi instance on OVH servers in Strasbourg to replace Zoom during the pandemic. The university eliminated EUR 15,000 in annual Zoom licensing costs while ensuring all student and faculty video data stays within France under GDPR protection.

A distributed European NGO with staff across 12 EU countries uses Jitsi Meet for daily standups, board meetings, and donor calls. The organization specifically chose Jitsi because no participant accounts are required — making it easy for external stakeholders, volunteers, and donors to join calls without creating yet another software account.

A German medical practice runs patient teleconsultations through a self-hosted Jitsi instance with end-to-end encryption enabled. The practice’s data protection officer confirmed that self-hosted Jitsi with E2EE is one of the few video solutions that fully complies with German medical data privacy requirements, since patient video data never leaves the practice’s own infrastructure.

Company Background

Jitsi was originally created in 2003 by Emil Ocelka as a student project at the University of Strasbourg, France, initially named “SIP Communicator.” The project grew into a full-featured open-source communication platform, and in 2015 the Jitsi team was acquired by Atlassian. In 2018, 8x8 Inc. acquired the Jitsi project when it purchased the video conferencing division from Atlassian. Despite 8x8 being a US-based company, the Jitsi project retains its open-source roots and its core development team remains largely European.

The Jitsi community has grown substantially since its early academic origins. The project has over 20,000 stars on GitHub and is one of the most widely deployed open-source video conferencing solutions in the world. During the COVID-19 pandemic, usage of the public meet.jit.si instance surged to millions of meetings per day, demonstrating the platform’s scalability and reliability. Thousands of organizations run their own self-hosted Jitsi instances, including universities, government agencies, healthcare providers, and NGOs.

Jitsi’s open-source ethos aligns strongly with European digital sovereignty principles. The entire codebase — including Jitsi Meet (the web app), Jitsi Videobridge (the media server), Jicofo (the conference focus), and Jibri (the recording component) — is published under the Apache 2.0 license. This means any organization can deploy, modify, and distribute Jitsi without restrictions, making it one of the most transparent and auditable video conferencing solutions available.

Security & Compliance

Jitsi Meet’s open-source architecture enables verifiable security practices:

• End-to-end encryption (E2EE) available using insertable streams technology in Chromium-based browsers, ensuring the server cannot decrypt audio or video
• SRTP encryption for all media streams by default, even when E2EE is not enabled — protecting against network-level interception
• Full code audit capability — the entire codebase is open source on GitHub, allowing organizations to perform their own security reviews and vulnerability assessments
• Regular security updates published by the Jitsi development team, with a transparent changelog and CVE disclosures
• OWASP-aligned practices for the web application, with protection against common web vulnerabilities in the Jitsi Meet frontend
• GDPR compliance achievable through self-hosting on EU infrastructure — organizations control all meeting data, metadata, and recordings with no third-party data processing
• Meeting security controls including lobby/waiting rooms, meeting passwords, participant moderation, and the ability to restrict screen sharing and chat

Integration Ecosystem

Jitsi Meet offers flexible integration options suited to both simple deployments and complex enterprise environments:

• IFrame API for embedding Jitsi Meet directly into web applications, intranets, or customer portals with full control over meeting configuration
• External API (lib-jitsi-meet) — a low-level JavaScript library for building custom video conferencing applications on top of the Jitsi infrastructure
• Calendar integrations with Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook through browser extensions and direct link insertion
• Webhooks and event listeners for automated workflows — trigger actions on meeting start, end, participant join/leave, and recording events
• Docker and Kubernetes deployment with official Docker Compose configurations and Helm charts for scalable, containerized deployments on any infrastructure
• Onapsis/Onabot and Onapsis Room Connector compatibility, plus integrations with Onapsis/Onabot and Onabot or Room Connector for hardware video endpoints (SIP/H.323)
• LTI integration for embedding Jitsi Meet in learning management systems like Moodle, Canvas, and Blackboard for educational institutions
• Matrix/Element bridge support for integrating Jitsi video calls directly into Matrix chat rooms, enabling decentralized communication workflows

Who Should Switch?

Jitsi Meet is ideal for:

• Privacy-conscious teams who want video calls without creating accounts or sharing data
• EU organizations that need GDPR-compliant video conferencing with provable data sovereignty
• Technical teams who can self-host for maximum control and zero recurring costs
• Educational institutions looking for a free, open-source classroom solution
• Anyone who wants quick, ad-hoc video meetings without the overhead of a proprietary platform

The Bottom Line

Jitsi Meet proves that video conferencing does not need to come with invasive data collection. It is free, open source, and can be self-hosted for complete control. The trade-off is real: Zoom offers a more polished experience with better enterprise features, webinar capabilities, and a smoother UI for non-technical users.

But for teams that value privacy, transparency, and cost-effectiveness, Jitsi Meet is an outstanding alternative. If you can self-host, you get a video conferencing solution with no per-user costs, no data leaving your infrastructure, and no corporate surveillance of your meetings.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do participants need to install anything to join a Jitsi meeting?

No. Jitsi Meet runs entirely in the browser. Share a meeting link and participants join instantly — no downloads, no accounts, no sign-ups. On mobile, the Jitsi Meet app is available but not required for basic participation.

How many participants can Jitsi Meet handle?

The public meet.jit.si instance handles meetings of up to 75-100 participants reliably. Self-hosted instances can be configured for larger meetings depending on your server resources. For enterprise-scale needs, JaaS (Jitsi as a Service) offers managed infrastructure with higher capacity.

Is self-hosting Jitsi Meet difficult?

For someone with basic Linux server administration skills, deploying Jitsi is straightforward. The project provides Docker containers and apt packages for Debian/Ubuntu. A basic installation on a VPS takes about 30 minutes. Detailed documentation and an active community forum are available for support.

Can Jitsi Meet record meetings like Zoom?

Yes, but differently. Self-hosted Jitsi uses Jibri for server-side recording and live streaming. On the public meet.jit.si instance, you can save recordings to Dropbox. The recording quality and reliability are good, though setup requires more effort than Zoom's one-click cloud recording.

Is Jitsi Meet truly end-to-end encrypted?

Jitsi Meet supports end-to-end encryption using insertable streams technology in supported browsers (Chrome, Edge). When enabled, the server cannot decrypt audio or video content. Note that some features like server-side recording are not compatible with end-to-end encryption mode.