Jitsi Meet
Hacker ApprovedRanked 2 of 9 video conferencing apps by recommenders
Free, open source video calls that work well and can be self-hosted. Main caveat: the public meet.jit.si instance has become more locked down.
Free, open source video calls that work well and can be self-hosted. Main caveat: the public meet.jit.si instance has become more locked down.
57 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 42
- criticize it
- 15
- approval share
- 74%
Recommended in 11 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 42 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 11 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Calls work reliably
“Jitsi works very well; I've had thousands of hours of calls on it at this point.”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month” “Jitsi and Nextcloud Talk are free and work very well”
Comment from 26 Jan 2026 in “France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc.” “Jitsi meet exists for long time and it works”
Comment from 26 Jan 2026 in “France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc.” - Comment from 9 Feb 2026 in “Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month”
- Comment from 17 Feb 2026 in “Discord Rival Gets Overwhelmed by Exodus of Players Fleeing Age-Verification”
- Comment from 9 Feb 2026 in “Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month”
- Comment from 9 Feb 2026 in “Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month”
Easy to self-host
“Based on their docs, self-hosting is well supported, and probably a $50-$100 server is more than enough, so a lot cheaper than Zoom.”
Comment from 5 Dec 2025 in “Cloudflare outage on December 5, 2025” “easiest way to private video calls is just to self-host Jitsi Meet anyway”
Comment from 3 Apr 2026 in “Proton Meet Isn't What They Told You It Was” “having a jitsi server that just works is nothing to shake a stick at”
Comment from 15 May 2026 in “RISC-V Router” - Comment from 8 Oct 2026 in “Ask HN: What do you run on a $5 VPS that's worth keeping online 24/7?”
- Comment from 12 Sep 2026 in “Linux Zoom client proactively reading everything written to X11 clipboard”
- Comment from 13 Sep 2026 in “Linux Zoom client proactively reading everything written to X11 clipboard”
Free and open source
“Jitsi is an excellent free and open source alternative.”
Comment from 13 Sep 2026 in “Linux Zoom client proactively reading everything written to X11 clipboard” “Jitsi and Nextcloud Talk are free and work very well”
Comment from 26 Jan 2026 in “France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc.” Replacement for Zoom or Teams
“Video / screen sharing and voice chat: Zoom, BigBlueButton, Jitsi”
Comment from 12 Feb 2026 in “Discord/Twitch/Snapchat age verification bypass” “We use Jitsi for voice/video calls + screen sharing”
Comment from 9 Feb 2026 in “Discord Launches Teen-by-Default Settings Globally” “Matrix/IRC client plus Jitsi, instead of Teams”
Comment from 28 Nov 2025 in “Can Dutch universities do without Microsoft?” - Comment from 24 Mar 2026 in “Apple Business”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Public instance locked down, needs sign-in
“Jitsi used to be so frictionless, but now that their public instances are a bit more locked-down”
Comment from 9 Feb 2026 in “Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month” “This only (but still sadly) applies to the use of the meet.jit.si instance.”
Comment from 28 Jan 2026 in “France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc.” “They switched to requiring google/microsoft accounts”
Comment from 27 Jan 2026 in “France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc.” Hard to set up and run
“when I looked at it again late last year it seemed more complicated”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month” “I got it working, but it was a huge pain to set up.”
Comment from 12 Sep 2026 in “Linux Zoom client proactively reading everything written to X11 clipboard” “I find it more complicated to run Jitsi in-house.”
Comment from 3 Feb 2026 in “France dumps Zoom and Teams as Europe seeks digital autonomy from the US” Scales poorly, feels bloated
“We found Jitsi to be too bloated and clunky.”
Comment from 8 Oct 2026 in “Show HN: Tide, simple self-hosted video meetings. URL is a demo anon deployment” “I just don't think it scales well enough.”
Comment from 14 Sep 2026 in “Linux Zoom client proactively reading everything written to X11 clipboard”
Other video conferencing apps people recommend
The four most recommended other video conferencing apps, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zoom | 99 | 155 | 39% | 12 | 5 yrs5 owners | — |
| Jitsi MeetThis page | 42 | 15 | 74% | 11 | — | Approved |
| Google Meet | 39 | 48 | 45% | 10 | — | — |
| Proton Meet | 17 | 23 | 43% | 5 | — | — |
| BigBlueButton | 7 | 2 | 78% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 65 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“On many occasions I found it annoying that auth cookies expire after a day or less.”
“Jitsi meet instance running on cheap VPS saves me tons of headaches”
“We found Jitsi to be too bloated and clunky.”
“The only options are things incapable of complying to this fucktardedness”
“I think you can do this with Jitsi”
“I just don't think it scales well enough.”
“Self-hosting my own Jitsi and it's faultless and the way to go.”
“I'm pleasantly surprised at how often someone will use jitsi when the alternative is not communicating with me in such a fashion.”
“Jitsi is an excellent free and open source alternative.”
“I got it working, but it was a huge pain to set up.”
“Spinning up a conference host for a small office is fairly trivial”
“just use Mumble for voice and Jitsi for video”
“having a jitsi server that just works is nothing to shake a stick at”
“E2EE is built in but you also have control of the server”
“You can find multiple jitsi community instances.”
“easiest way to private video calls is just to self-host Jitsi Meet anyway”
“Jitsi as a Zoom substitute”
“Jitsi does usable conferencing”
“Video / screen sharing and voice chat: Zoom, BigBlueButton, Jitsi”
“when I looked at it again late last year it seemed more complicated”
“I prefer to have video/voice in it's own system.”
“Jitsi works very well; I've had thousands of hours of calls on it at this point.”
“Jitsi used to be so frictionless, but now that their public instances are a bit more locked-down”
“it works surprisingly well”
“Jitsi handles this very well.”
“We use Jitsi for voice/video calls + screen sharing”
“the element integration felt clunky”
“I seem to recall Jitsi working pretty well.”
“the desktop/web clients still require you to use embedded Jitsi”
“I find it more complicated to run Jitsi in-house.”
“This only (but still sadly) applies to the use of the meet.jit.si instance.”
“They switched to requiring google/microsoft accounts”
“Jitsi and Nextcloud Talk are free and work very well”
“Jitsi meet exists for long time and it works”
“Even something already available off the shelf!”
“I'm still annoyed that nobody bothered looking at jitsi”
“essentially less bloated slack/discord”
“Might get you a long way faster than rebuilding for yourself from scratch.”
“Based on their docs, self-hosting is well supported, and probably a $50-$100 server is more than enough, so a lot cheaper than Zoom.”
“Matrix/IRC client plus Jitsi, instead of Teams”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.