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Jitsi Meet: An open source alternative to Zoom

897 points by LockAndLol 7y ago

jimbob45 7y ago
What’s up with the name? I’m never going to get my boss on board with a malware-looking name like that.
- dandigangi 7y ago
  +1 this is an awful name if you want to get anyone serious on board. Seems super scammy.
  - ripley12 7y ago
    I don't get a malware/scam vibe from the name, but I'm probably missing something. What makes you think that?
    - systemvoltage 7y ago
      I also think it’s a horrible name, reminds me of “Tootsie” and an equally ugly logo to match. These things are subjective but if enough people hate it, perhaps it’s important to look into it.
      - ummonk 7y ago
        I normally complain about terrible open source branding but didn't have a negative reaction to this branding when I saw this post. Goes to show how important it is to do user research on a broad swath of the population to make sure you have branding that isn't off-putting to a significant subset of people.
        systemvoltage 7y ago
        Definitely. There is also universal agreement in good branding vs bad branding. I’ve been browsing the top branding blog for over 12 years now: https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/ https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/ Still subjective but let’s compare Jitsi brand with something from https://www.cghnyc.com/ https://www.cghnyc.com/ There is certainly a huge difference even though it’s not a quantitative measure. Jitsi brand just sucks so bad. :(
        distances 7y ago
        I think there's some irony in complaining about "Jitsi" and proving a link to "cghnyc".
    - NikolaNovak 7y ago
      It's a feeling, so not easily rationalizable... I wonder if it has anything to do with being "Gypped" (), but for me even outside of that connotation, the word evokes negative feeling. () Interestingly, I too have for the first time looked up the etymology and feel uncomfortable; I think because I've only ever heard it before, and assumed it was spelled differently like "Jipped" or something https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/12/30/242429836/why-being-gypped-hurts-the-roma-more-than-it-hurts-you https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/12/30/242429836...
  - jerrysievert 7y ago
    compared to a name that invokes the church of the subgenius, or its competitor that invokes the alternative: discordianism? jitsi seems quite tame compared to both of those.
  - blunte 7y ago
    Again, like the "jimbob" guy above who was objecting to the name Jitsi, I find "dandigangi" to be rather odd and unsettling. If we're going to make names be the cover of the book, then we must all realize that almost any name will be uncomfortable to some audiences.
- mikecarlton 7y ago
  I was wondering about the name too. From https://jitsi.org/what-is-jitsi/ https://jitsi.org/what-is-jitsi/ : SIP Communicator is renamed Jitsi (from the Bulgarian “жици”, or “wires”), since it now also supports audio and video over XMMP’s Jingle extensions and it would be silly to still call it SIP Communicator.
- Brakenshire 7y ago
  Slightly surprised by the response, Jitsi seems fine to me. Is it worse than Slack?
  - phendrenad2 7y ago
    I've noticed that a lot of people have an aversion to software that doesn't have a name that's made from English word(s). This is possibly because the most common software out there has this property, and so people subconsciously associate it with quality (exceptions abound, of course, Samsung, Adobe, but I think that you need to reach a certain size to break free from the negative stigma in English-speaking countries). Come to think of it, this may be why Linux is still seen as an outsider to non-technical people, as though it were less of a serious product than Windows (which has an English word as a name).
    - Phillipharryt 7y ago
      Adobe is a an English word though. More people are probably now aware of the software than the bricks, but it has a root there.
    - skocznymroczny 7y ago
      The name Linux is not the issue, the fact that it isn't a product might be. Think of Windows or macOS, pick a version, you can picture what it looks like and what apps run on it. Linux isn't a specific product. You can't install Linux 10.15. You might install a specific kernel version, or a specific distro version, but Linux is more of an assemblage of packages rather than one cohesive end-product. And it's not as easy to picture Linux in your mind. One Linux user will use default Ubuntu installation, one Linux user will boot directly to terminal because window managers, and other Linux user will be using Android which is completely different case as well.
  - ruffrey 7y ago
    Or “google”
  - catblast 7y ago
    Or Skype? ICQ? This thread is quite idiotic.
- blunte 7y ago
  Ironic that you would suggest "Jitsi" as a (stereo)typically bad name with a username of "jimbob". I guess we all have our own prejudices.
- crispinb 7y ago
  If your boss is thick enough for vague adolescent impressions to be a significant criterion, your job is at risk.
- arendtio 7y ago
  Says jimbob45 :D
xiii1408 7y ago
Back in undergrad (ca 2013) when I got super serious about privacy, I used the Jitsi client to videoconference with friends over my XMPP server [1]. It was pretty much the only open-source VoIP solution I could get working at the time. The experience was actually pretty smooth, with quality comparable to Skype and Hangouts at the time. The main pain point was that I had to force everyone to download Jitsi and connect to my XMPP server... Excited to see they're still doing cool stuff! [1]Technically the XMPP server is just session management.
blantonl 7y ago
This is really nice, but who is paying for all the infrastructure and bandwidth? Are there more details?
- dabeeeenster 7y ago
  https://www.8x8.com/ https://www.8x8.com/ Footer of https://jitsi.org/ https://jitsi.org/
  - sahaskatta 7y ago
    Just came across this on HN too: https://www.8x8.vc https://www.8x8.vc
- xiii1408 7y ago
  It's P2P, like most videoconferencing. The server part is just for session management.
  - dabeeeenster 7y ago
    And firewall punching etc
    - makeset 7y ago
      Can firewall punching work without proxying all traffic over the server?
      - jhauris 7y ago
        Yes, if you're using UDP. Check out STUN and TURN.
  - tommoor 7y ago
    > like most videoconferencing Well, if there's only 2, maybe 3 of you – anything beyond that is going to use a server to host the call for reliability.
dionisloire 7y ago
We integrated Jitsi meet into Taskade for collaborative task lists, notes, and mind maps, with video chat. You can give our app a try at https://www.taskade.com/new https://www.taskade.com/new (no registration needed, mobile and desktop) Open to any feedback!
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jaequery 7y ago
I agree that it's an awful name but it's a superb app! Can't believe this is open-sourced.
- m3kw9 7y ago
  Eventually it will up sell more features as in all open source projects aim
rvz 7y ago
That's the problem. This is supposed to be the time for Jitsi to be widely used and is a credible and a privacy-respecting, open-source alternative to Zoom. But will it break out from the free and open source audiences and reach into the mainstream where Zoom is? I hope so and it should. Open-source, iOS and Android apps, self-hosting, video chat and first class web client support are all attractive and competing required features to stand a chance against Zoom and aside from its technical merits, it just needs to be more aggressive in marketing itself to capture some mindshare. Or even the name its should be changed to something less clever and to a more user friendly one which could be a start...
- distances 7y ago
  I don't know the story behind the name, but I didn't realize it was clever and I do consider it very user friendly -- short, memorable, stands out, easy to pronounce.
Brakenshire 7y ago
I was looking at the Matrix clients yesterday, to set up a video chat room for elderly relatives. Everything seems just a bit too confusing or unpolished. I want something simple, functional and cross platform. At the moment I’m feeling Zoom with scheduled meeting times is probably the best bet. I’ll test this out, but does anyone have any other thoughts, or any non-proprietary recommendations?
- kgraves 7y ago
  Zoom or Google Hangouts/Meet is your best bet. I have not seen anything better than these unfortunately in the open source world that is as accessible or easy to use as those two.
johnxie 7y ago
We have a lot of experience working with Jitsi Meet, if anyone has questions integrating Jitsi, free to send me an email john@taskade.com. Happy to help!
- monksy 7y ago
  I found that it had some issues with people connecting via the web clients. Is there a way to mitigate that or is that just expected with the software?
  - johnxie 7y ago
    Do you mean some parties are unable to connect? There are some open issues, limitations, and Jitsi Meet does not officially support all browsers. Here is the supported list: https://github.com/jitsi/lib-jitsi-meet/blob/master/modules/browser/capabilities.json https://github.com/jitsi/lib-jitsi-meet/blob/master/modules/... For example, Brave Browser is still not fully supported: https://github.com/jitsi/jitsi-meet/issues/3978 https://github.com/jitsi/jitsi-meet/issues/3978
    - wideasleep1 7y ago
      FWIW, it works great on my Chromebook, meeted up with myself on my Android. Even used x86 Bromite browser on Chromebook, and even blur background worked after a slight delay. Impressive.
      - johnxie 7y ago
        Thank you!
    - MR4D 7y ago
      I’m curious why it works on iPad but not iPhone. (Video doesn’t work on either, but that’s documented)
  - cheald 7y ago
    Folks using Brave (or who otherwise have video autoplay turned off) will need to allow autoplay for it to work correctly.
mmanfrin 7y ago
There doesn't appear to be a share-window/share-screen option which feels like that makes this a non-starter for a lot of work-related applications.
- d_runs_far 7y ago
  there is. Used it today. I deployed it last night on a do droplet and ran some tests with co-workers today.
- GordonS 7y ago
  I came across Jitsi just the other day, and I was so particularly impressed because it's OSS and does have a screen sharing function.
- monksy 7y ago
  It works. I hosted a meetup Friday night using it for the jackbox games.
  - zemo 7y ago
    how many people were in it? I'm trying to set something up for my family to play Jackbox with more than 10 people, google hangouts caps out at 10 and I don't really want to make everyone set up the zoom app since I'll have to do tech support for everyone. (disclaimer: I work at Jackbox, I'm in charge of the multiplayer servers)
    - monksy 7y ago
      It was about 6 people. We had issues with video and audio going through. For the people who it was working for we didn't have a lot of issues. I'm not sure how the audio went through.(Btw this was on linux) Is Jackbox still chicago based, or is that only the jellyvision side?
      - zemo 7y ago
        yep, still in Chicago, Jackbox and Jellyvision both (although we're completely separate now).
brigandish 7y ago
The home page looks like it was designed by a 20 year old who lives in a world of Javascript package managers. Get someone over 50 in there to kick them and remind them that "Start a new meeting" with things like "LeopardBottomSniffer" appearing under it means nothing to anyone but developers. Here's a better design, in text: - Who are we? This is Jitsi Meet video conferencing - How do I use it? Just type a name for your meeting in the box and get started, you'll be able to share from there. The old line about "can someone's granny use?" this comes to mind. If I seem annoyed, I am, we need successful competitors to things like Zoom and Google but that means getting non-developers to use them.
- dddddaviddddd 7y ago
  I looked at Jitsi's website and Github yesterday and couldn't find any documentation. For example, it wasn't clear to me why I would want to run Videobridge, or what features Meet has.
  - d_runs_far 7y ago
    documentation is the only downfall. I did the step by step for Ubuntu, had it going in no time.
    - brigandish 7y ago
      That's good to know. I'm going to give it a go with a couple of family members who really could use something like this for their businesses. Zoom also suffers from the non-intuitive problem so I was hoping for something a bit better on that front.
- vosper 7y ago
  > The home page looks like it was designed by a 20 year old who lives in a world of Javascript package managers. > Get someone over 50 in there to kick them and remind them that "Start a new meeting" with things like "LeopardBottomSniffer" appearing under it means nothing to anyone but developers. I think this is a little overly ageist but yeah - if you're not familiar with the kind of URLs generated by services like Gfycat then it looks pretty strange, and it's not really clear what's going on (why is it typing these strange words in the box?)
ISO-morphism 7y ago
I've tried Jitsi Meet and found it to be smooth. During a hangout call with a group of ~8 friends I introduced it as an alternative. User experience comparison: Onboarding: Jitsi: Click a URL. No accounts. Hangouts: Google account. Need to individually invite other Google accounts. Video Quality: Jitsi: Decent, slightly better than hangouts. Hangouts: Passable but grainy. Video Layout: Jitsi: Automatically big-screens current speaker, shows small screens of others. Has option to tile to equally size screens. Hangouts: Same. Conclusion: Friends preferred Hangouts. It's quite disheartening that "average users" shun 1 click URL room creation with superior video and audio quality for manually adding contacts. And that's without any considerations for free software vs. Google panopticon. They would rather tolerate a multi-step process of sharing gmail accounts, asking the same person for their email repeatedly.
- judge2020 7y ago
  > Hangouts: Google account. Need to individually invite other Google accounts. Hangouts (now Meet) is better geared towards GSuite orgs where you're already logged into Google since you have to be to access almost all of your other internal company/school resources, including gmail. It also solves the contacts problem since everyone will be in the company directory.
  - ISO-morphism 7y ago
    > Hangouts (now Meet) Ah-ha! Google Hangouts Meet is indeed the GSuite video conferencing solution, complemented by Google Hangouts Chat, the GSuite Slack competitor. Google Hangouts is "deprecated" but still alive, and with a plain-old gmail account I don't see an option to use Hangouts Chat nor Hangouts Meet, only Hangouts. As a user in a GSuite org, Chat and Meet exist, and plain-old Hangouts text messages are mirrored in Chat, but the video conferencing is still weirdly separate from Meet.
    - modzu 7y ago
      sounds about right until this time next year
    - 7y ago
neves 7y ago
We are using it intensely at my company and after some server upgrades it is working very well.
- neves 7y ago
  We've more than 500 simultaneous users.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
    > We've more than 500 simultaneous users. 1. Wow, 2. Anything special required to pull that off?
  - amikazmi 7y ago
    When you write 500 simultaneous users, do you mean: 1. 500 users making multiple calls across our servers at the same time? 2. 500 users on a single call?
    - neves 7y ago
      It's 1. Big groups in one conference didn't work as well.
- christefano 7y ago
  What server-specific upgrades did you do? How did you tune it?
brewdad 7y ago
How well does Jitsi scale? Can it handle a group of say 15 or so participants on a variety of devices?
- warrenm 7y ago
  I've had several connecting via hotspotting their phone on a single CPU, 2G VPS
  - enriquto 7y ago
    Several how many? 5 or 25 ? Can I reliably teach to a small classroom using it?
    - warrenm 7y ago
      5 And their connections sucked But my Jitsi instance was fine
- ElijahLynn 7y ago
  It is based on WebRTC, so the actual video data doesn't pass through a central server. Google Duo uses this same technology. There _is_ a central server but that is just to glue all the handshakes together. The video/audio don't pass through it, it is all peer-to-peer, so scaling is more so on the client application and the available bandwidth. WebRTC dynamically changes the bitrate of the stream depending on connection though, so it should scale nicely. I haven't tried a large conference on meet.jit.si yet though, only 1:1. But if there are performance issues it is likely the client application itself that needs performance tuning.
  - cheald 7y ago
    That's true for 1:1, but 1:2+ does go through the server. It's scaled quite well for us, though.
- nemoniac 7y ago
  I've been doing sessions with 20 participants without any problem.
monksy 7y ago
In trying to get this to work on a multi site configured server. My friend and I got it working. He wrote up a guide to getting it working on Centos. https://antipaucity.com/2020/03/20/basic-dockerized-jitsi-deployment-with-an-apache-reverse-proxy-on-centos/ https://antipaucity.com/2020/03/20/basic-dockerized-jitsi-de...
fuddle 7y ago
I'm seeing a certificate error on the https://jitsi.net/ https://jitsi.net/ domain. Not a great sign.
- ElijahLynn 7y ago
  jitsi.org and meet.jit.si are the 2 URLs that come up in search. jitsi.net isn't one of them, fwiw.
crazygringo 7y ago
I'm curious... between Whereby and Jitsi and I assume other browser-based video solutions relying on WebRTC... ...how big is the barrier these days to building a "videoconferencing platform" supporting millions of people... that runs on a single server? Because if you need to do is build a pretty website that essentially just keeps track of meeting names and the names and IP addresses of participants... ...while each client is P2P-streaming their full-res videostream while speaking or other participants have them pinned... and every other client is P2P-streaming a low-res videostream to power the thumbnails (and similar decisions about which computer is the main audio source and when, or picking a single peer to serve as the audio mixer)... What else is there to do, really? (I mean obviously there's fancy stuff you can add like screensharing, chat, authentication, etc... and browser-specific bugfixes and quirks presumably...) But are we at a point where anyone can write a functional videoconferencing platform in a week, and platforms are differentiating mainly on nicer UX and extra features? Or is there something huge I'm missing here, where implementing WebRTC is somehow a lot harder than it seems, and/or still requires server farms to route the streams through in certain cases?
- ricardobeat 7y ago
  It doesn't scale well beyond a handful of people. You need *N bandwidth to send and receive, and without a thing called 'simulcast' (creating multiple, different quality stream simultaneously) which doesn't have good browser support the quality is defined by the lowest common denominator. A central server solves many, many issues that result in better quality. Jitsi itself barely works on Firefox and not at all on mobile devices (without their app).
  - Naac 7y ago
    On Linux at least, it simply does not work on Firefox. Something with webrtc, but I can't get video to work. Basically, it's a known issue [0] and the response is that maybe it'll get fixed eventually :( [0] https://community.jitsi.org/t/browser-support-warning-when-using-the-latest-firefox-71-0-version-on-meet-jit-si/21180 https://community.jitsi.org/t/browser-support-warning-when-u... EDIT: It seems firefox-stable works OK.
  - 7y ago
jpdus 7y ago
The main reasons for Zooms popularity (and in general the most important features of a videoconferencing software) are accessibility and reliability. Same as with Slack/IRC - privacy is not the most important features in that space. If I have the choice of a working solution with some minor privacy issues and a solution which will never be adopted b/c half of the people will not be able to join or their experience is miserable, I will gladly take the former (except for the most delicate conversations maybe). (And I am someone who takes privacy serious in most cases...)
- swiley 7y ago
  Zoom’s privacy issues are more than minor, if my friends started using it and I couldn’t get the web version to work I wouldn’t do a conference call with them.
  - anon102010 7y ago
    Can I ask if you are using video conferencing in a business setting? When folks are trying to get stuff done in tough circumstances NO ONE has ANY patience for the home built / funky / privacy enhanced multi-click setup. Especially not the top executives now dialing in from home who aren't tech forward. IT doesn't want to trouble shoot things either - all of a sudden you have 1000+ folks video conferencing. I'd be interested in these dealbreaker privacy problems in the current client.
    - swiley 7y ago
      We're using webex at work but I've used half a dozen different tools so far with friends (no FOSS ones unfortunately) and they all work about as well.
      - anon102010 7y ago
        I used to use webex more, but zoom just had had some incredible mindshare growth. Its literally the first suggestion it seems when there is a problem with a conference setup. Latency is also good on zoom which makes the audio side nicer in my experience.
wenc 7y ago
I wonder if anyone (who also has Zoom) could comment on how Jitsi actually compares to Zoom for 20+ people with full video? (since the title pits it against Zoom) I'm seeing comments how how good Jitsi is, but can someone categorically say Jitsi is comparable to or better than Zoom? The advantages of Zoom are ease of setup, smooth simultaneous video experience (tiled) for 20+ participants, and breakout rooms. The experience is so good that I was convinced to fork out my own money for a personal subscription. If Jitsi can do all of the above, I'd be inclined to try it out for my next meeting.
- paulryanrogers 7y ago
  Beyond a certain scale there's also Big Blue Button, though it was very lecture focused last I tried it
  - qpiox 7y ago
    We started using BigBlueButton at the the University. I tried to teach and there is nothing in it that is specifically lecture focused, but if you just use it as videoconferencing tool with all microphones muted, it does the job for a one-way communication tool. Once students start asking questions it is too limited. The chat clutters soon, the option for raising hands or changing status is useless with large groups. I'd say that the whole interface is useful only for smaller groups up to 10 persons, definitely not above 100 persons. I have not tried Zoom or Jitsi Meet in such settings and can't compare. They both have some useful options and slightly more options than Big Blue Button (like the Youtube streaming in Jitsi Meet that will save bandwidth).
enriquto 7y ago
It's very disheartening that when you try to connect with firefox, it says you should use chrome. This is a direct stab in the heart of the people who would favor it over zoom because it is free software.
- surround 7y ago
  Zoom also recommends Chrome [1]. As other users said, the issue is probably with Firefox’s simulcast, not Jitsi. [1] https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/214629443-Zoom-Web-Client https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/214629443-Zoom-Web...
- undefined-1 7y ago
  It worked better for me in Firefox than Chromium.
- fergbrain 7y ago
  I use it with Firefox and it works just fine
  - Naac 7y ago
    What version of Firefox? What OS? Can confirm Firefox-dev on Linux has no working video.
    - lytedev 7y ago
      Firefox preview on my phone in desktop mode worked FWIW.
      - skylerwshaw 7y ago
        If that's on iOS, you're not actually using Firefox since it uses Apple's Webkit.
        surround 7y ago
Naac 7y ago
Is the Android App open source? I haven't been able to find the source code for the play store app on the jitsi github account.
- wideasleep1 7y ago
  I got it off FDroid, so...
- kragen 7y ago
  Yes, it is.
tekknolagi 7y ago
To the authors, if they see this: I'm trying to use this to call my mother and we are both just looking at our own faces. I've confirmed -- via separate video call on phones -- that we're at the same URL, both look connected, and both have camera permissions. There's no indication that anything is wrong on either of our computers.
- mixmastamyk 7y ago
  Great for narcissists.
EGreg 7y ago
What about a web based WebRTC solution? So people don’t have to download anything?
- Brakenshire 7y ago
  I’m fairly certain this can run in the browser, although it seems to default to an app download on mobile.
  - OrgNet 7y ago
    In Firefox, if you click the 3-dots and then "Request desktop site", it let's you use the website for video conferencing... (which should be the default even for mobile)
- warrenm 7y ago
  I've only used it Web-based Nothing to download, if you don't want to
wintorez 7y ago
It's actually impressive!
andrepd 7y ago
I was wondering just now why in the midst of all this remote working boom Jitsi Meet is seldom mention. Jitsi Meet has been absolutely stellar every time I've used it. Great interface, not bloated even when running in a browser with 10+ other people, plenty of options to manage conferences with many people (raise-your-hand button, selective muting/soloing, etc). Creating a chat is as easy as typing a name and hitting enter, no account needed! And getting somebody to join is as simple as clicking a link to meet.jitsi.net/yourchatroomname. On top of that it's open source and end to end encrypted. Disclaimer: no affiliation, just a happy user.
- surround 7y ago
  Jitsi meet is not end-to-end encrypted [1]. Rather, it is encrypted with TLS between the client and the server, which doesn’t provide the same security/privacy benefit at all. The website says it’s “fully encrypted,” which I think is misleading. [1] https://github.com/jitsi/jitsi-meet/blob/master/README.md#security https://github.com/jitsi/jitsi-meet/blob/master/README.md#se... Edit: WebRTC does not support end-to-end encryption for multiple peers. This means it’s impossible for any browser-supported videoconferencing platform to support e2e encryption, including Zoom and Jitsi. This is where Jitsi actually has a unique advantage - it can be self hosted, which offers the same security benefits as e2e encryption.
  - emcho 7y ago
    Signaling is indeed over HTTPS and media is encrypted with DTLS-SRTP. No browsers today support end-to-end encryption for multiparty calls. The advantage that Jitsi offers there is that you can stand it up on your own server in just a few minutes and get protection that is equivalent to end-to-end encryption.
    - surround 7y ago
      Coincidentally, the edit I made to my comment is nearly identical to your comment. But now I’m outside the 1 hour window of being able to edit.
amrx101 7y ago
I can't seem to schedule meeting like Zoom?
- bonestamp2 7y ago
  I assume the use case there is that you create a meeting and then put the link in the calendar invite that you send. But, I'd like to know more about how long your "own" that meeting URL before it expires. I'll ask in the jitsi forums.
  - jdmac 7y ago
    The meeting technically exists as long as there are participants. Anyone can join the url so if you pick something unique and hard to guess you'll probably be the only one to ever use it.
Nextgrid 7y ago
I looked at Jitsi recently as I was thinking about self-hosting it (I have the bandwidth). My concerns: It seems to be based on XMPP and require an XMPP server. They offer a quick-start guide on configuring it however I am not sure how secure the default configuration is - I'm worried the quick start guide is about "get it working", not "make it secure" and I don't have XMPP knowledge nor the desire to learn a complicated protocol just to be able to run this securely. Why does it need an XMPP server? I do not want nor care about XMPP and everyone will be joining via browsers anyway. As far as I'm concerned it's just one (very big) moving part that I don't want to be responsible for. Overall it left a sour & sad taste in my mouth. There's no way I'm putting this thing on the public Internet; the attack surface seems too large and too many opportunities to screw it up.
- manquer 7y ago
  Jitsi uses XMPP(prosody) for MUC- basically coordination and control of sessions. XMPP is not exposed directly to the user, they use a BOSH client abstraction to convert that to http. It is actually good design and scales well. we have scaled the bridge to 500 plus concurrent sessions without lot of production tuning in non P2P mode (generally harder more resource intensive).
  - Nextgrid 7y ago
    > BOSH client abstraction to convert that to http This still means the outside world can interact with the XMPP server, correct? If so then this is my concern - an XMPP server seems like a huge attack surface for the tiny bit of functionality Jitsi needs (I'm confident it's using less than 10% of the actual capabilities of the XMPP server, which means the rest of the code paths are mostly untested in this scenario and are ripe for abuse and potential exploits). In your case, is this an internal server or is it open to the Internet?
    - manquer 7y ago
      It is authenticated, i.e. only logged in users have access. Prosody is well tested XMPP implementation and is used in many production application. meet.jit.si is unauthenticated deployment and many people use it. I wouldn't call it a tiny bit of functionality, MUC and SFU are the two main components of any video conferencing solution. XMPP helps provide MUC capability, Jicofo is the component you can see the implementation here https://github.com/jitsi/jicofo https://github.com/jitsi/jicofo BOSH does not allow all operations available via XMPP standard, there are restrictions possible, to maintain security.
nafizh 7y ago
How does this work for normal video calling e.g. calling your parents? Every time I want to talk with them, sharing a video link with them first seems to create a friction. I badly want an alternative to the awful Skype.
cheald 7y ago
We switched from Slack to Mattermost internally, and while setting it up I noticed Jitsi integration offered. I've been really impressed by it, and we're working to move most meetings to it. Some teams are still using Zoom, but I don't think that's going to last very long! My Brazilian Jiujitsu academy is trying it out, too, for virtual classes during shutdown. We just held the first today, and a bunch of non-technical parents were able to get things set up for their kids so that we could all attend a class together. It worked quite well. Given the price, it's a really impressive piece of software.
- Bellyache5 7y ago
  So the Jiujitsu academy is now practicing Jiujitsi!
josh_blum 7y ago
Recently started using this and found it very seamless. There is a Keybase chat bot to drop meeting links into your conversation so you can jump on a call: https://keybase.io/jitsibot/chat https://keybase.io/jitsibot/chat
lpnotes 7y ago
I'm the creator of a remote-first community/open source project called CodeBuddies (a not-for-profit), and we built Jitsi into our hangouts (meetings anyone can schedule to pair program or study together) -- i.e. whenever someone schedules a hangout to meet with someone else in the community, we embed Jitsi as an iframe onto the event page. We initially used Google Hangouts for the project in 2014, and we've been using Jitsi ever since Google Hangouts deprecated its API in 2017. I generally love Jitsi; like Google Hangouts, it allows multiple people to screenshare simultaneously in our virtual coworking sessions. However, I have stumbled upon a couple of issues with it: - higher rates of audio or screensharing issues, especially when the participants are long distance or if one of them has a poor wifi connection, or is on an older computer. - screensharing with the browser extension sometimes doesn't work, or times out We're actually rebuilding the CodeBuddies platform right now, and for the next iteration I am strongly considering paying for the Zoom API instead because it's more accessible to people with lower quality wifi connections and for folks on older machines.
- opan 7y ago
  Have you tried reporting these issues?
P4u1 7y ago
I've been using Jitsi for a while, even though my company uses GSuite. Not going into details about the corporate use since many have already, but the other day it was my daughter's birthday, being on a quarantine and all and having family in different countries, I sent a jisi link to the family groups on whatsapp so we could all sing happy birthday together, everybody got in, it went all very smoothly. Better than the usual business meeting "can you hear me, I hear you, hello" routine. Thank you Jitsi team!
the_arun 7y ago
What is their(Jitsi's) business model if it is free? How do they keep themselves up?
- behnamoh 7y ago
  Exactly my question. The old adage "if you're not paying for it then you're the product" makes me worried to try Jitsi, unless they come out clean about their business model.
- ryukafalz 7y ago
  They're currently owned by a VoIP provider that I would guess uses some of the Jitsi tech in-house. They've been through a few acquisitions at this point and continue to maintain their free software, so I'm optimistic they'll continue to do so.
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eagsalazar2 7y ago
Is this really as good as zoom? Zoom's UX is terrible, the only reason it has taken over is because they are better at preserving audio quality and doing echo cancellation than previous contenders.
itsalidoe 7y ago
Any of the founding team here for Jitsi? I am helping a friend build a virtual community and this solution is perfect but we need a bit of help getting started. Would love to connect jiwanix@gmail.com!
dang 7y ago
Discussed a few weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22477785 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22477785
maxnoe 7y ago
I deployed it using the docker compose Config for my university group in our rancher cluster: https://github.com/jitsi-mee/docker-jitsi-meet https://github.com/jitsi-mee/docker-jitsi-meet We now use it for most meetings, works very well so far, several sessions in parallel with several dozen people at the same time (but mostly only using audio). Screen sharing works fine as well. We made the experience that they are unfortunately right about requiring chrome (chromium works fine as well). Would be great if firefox support could come back.
- maxnoe 7y ago
  Correct link: https://github.com/jitsi/docker-jitsi-meet https://github.com/jitsi/docker-jitsi-meet
- JeremyNT 7y ago
  It seems to work in Firefox despite the browser warning. What do you use for authentication? Do you have an existing ldap server? I spooled up a server for neighbors and family to use on my personal vps and the user account management promises to be problematic using the internal auth mechanism.
  - maxnoe 7y ago
    Yes, I connected our existing ldap for moderators and allow guests. So one authenticated user is required per session and the rest can be anyone.
  - maxnoe 7y ago
    Several other comments have touched on this, but firefox unfortunately while it seems to work creates issues, even for the other participants. It just seems a lot less stable as soon as several firefox clients connect.
sidcool 7y ago
I am sorry if this is already answered, but what is the revenue model and how do they afford a network intensive tool like video conferencing? BTW, I loved it.
- johnxie 7y ago
  8x8 acquired Jitsi from Atlassian some time ago, see https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/29/atlassian-sells-jitsi-an-open-source-videoconferencing-tool-it-acquired-in-2015-to-8x8/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/29/atlassian-sells-jitsi-an-o...
  - sidcool 7y ago
    Ok, but still, how does 8x8 gain earn?
willmacdonald 7y ago
Has anyone tried the captioning features of hangouts meet. Amazing technology! Live dictation of everything said.
BrandiATMuhkuh 7y ago
We used it for a couple of month but we had 3 main issues 1) for whatever reason the stability dropped significantly during that period. The first 1-2 month, all was fine. After that, we constantly lost people (we are in NZ, EU, America's, Asia). Maybe the demand grew but they didn't scale the servers 2) sometimes we want to quickly share our editor/screen. Sadly the compression makes it impossible to read text (zoom correctly shows text) 3) we are often in countries with heavy censorship (UAE, China). Only zoom really works. Not even meet, slack-video, Skype works
jhoechtl 7y ago
Does it fully work on Linux Wayland?
buovjaga 7y ago
The renovated videobridge will soon get into stable packages: https://community.jitsi.org/t/jvb-2-considered-stable/24314 https://community.jitsi.org/t/jvb-2-considered-stable/24314 More about the renovation effort: https://jitsi.org/news/jvb-2-0-preparing-our-video-router-for-the-next-10-years-of-video-conferencing/ https://jitsi.org/news/jvb-2-0-preparing-our-video-router-fo...
jbergens 7y ago
I am afraid that the free model of their service will not work very well if tens of thousands of teams start to use this now. It is easier to trust the known brands and organizations that also charges a bit when you use their system a lot.
- saghul 7y ago
  Most of the Jitsi devs are employed by 8x8, which offers a service based on it: https://8x8.vc https://8x8.vc and it also integrates it in Virtual Office, it's core product. Disclaimer: I work for 8x8.
- cl3misch 7y ago
  The main feature is that you can host Jitsi Meet yourself. You don't depend on their servers for performance nor data privacy.
leonroy 7y ago
Also easy to skin and deploy - we setup a custom branded instance for our customers to use during the pandemic within a couple of days: https://meet.brring.com/ https://meet.brring.com/ It’s rather incredible what it can do: * SIP gateway to support inbound telephony dial in * Meeting recording * Auto scaling of the video bridges to dynamically handle load * Native iOS, Android and even Apple Watch clients All free, all open source. The install videos are also really good indeed: https://jitsi.org/news/tag/tutorial/ https://jitsi.org/news/tag/tutorial/
- jdiez17 7y ago
  I also deployed a Jitsi instance and was surprised how easy it was. I have two questions for you: 1. Do you see high CPU usage when there are multiple conferences with a few participants happening simultaneously? 2. How did you set up conference recording? I know Jibri exists but the installation instructions are quite confusing. It seems you need a VM per conference you want to record. Is that the case?
  - leonroy 7y ago
    1. Yes, it has pretty high CPU usage unfortunately and that’s despite the attempts of Jitsi to offload h264 encoding onto the clients. You could in theory lock it to standard definition video though which would reduce CPU usage a lot. 2. We did not on this instance but we did using their Docker instance which was very straightforward to setup: https://github.com/jitsi/docker-jitsi-meet#jitsi-broadcasting-infrastructure-configuration https://github.com/jitsi/docker-jitsi-meet#jitsi-broadcastin... I don’t believe it needs a VM per conference - maybe a ffmpeg process per instance? Here's the Jitsi architecture which best I can tell shows JIBRI (recording part) as a separate, single container: https://i.imgur.com/oDSRzF4.png https://i.imgur.com/oDSRzF4.png
enitihas 7y ago
I think it shows the sheer incompetence of Google product management that they managed to lose the strong hold Gtalk had. Gtalk worked. People liked it. Hangouts too worked well. I used hangouts in browser in 2013 and it worked very well. Somehow google decided to replace hangouts with allo and duo, and then deprecated allo, and moved to RCS. I never understand how such decisions get made. Do they think customers have infinite loyalty and will move to any new product launched by the company. A lot of people I know used hangouts. Very few use Duo.
- mixmastamyk 7y ago
  No compelling revenue stream, to a company the size of Google. Probably seen as a fun project that got boring once the hard work (of fixing bugs) started.
highhedgehog 7y ago
how is this economically sustainable?
pgt 7y ago
If I can offer some UX feedback, the golden rule of all UX design is to eliminate question marks. The typing animation in the placeholder draws all my attention. Puzzled, I tried to make sense of ForwardShelvesCollapseClose for several seconds, when I should have been reading the landing page copy. The principle to design by omission is to ask if an element answers the question you want me to ask, or raises the question you want me to ask, e.g. 1. "How much does it cost?" 2. "Where do I buy it?" 3. "How do I share it?"
cptwunderlich 7y ago
I've tried jitsi for a group chat with friends, but the CPU usage went to the roof and we had other problems too. Apparently that's an issue with Firefox, as I've learned here. Anyway, we were using talky.io, which is also a WebRTC based solution and it worked really well. No registration, good Audio/Video quality, screen sharing. No background blurring though, if that's what you need.
mindfreeze_ 7y ago
We tried Jitsi recently and it works really well https://twitter.com/vibhoothi/status/1241645013299167232 https://twitter.com/vibhoothi/status/1241645013299167232
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daffy 7y ago
I tried suggesting Jitsi for Zoom to a group. I didn't attend the first meeting, but they said they tested both and found that Zoom was ``much more stable'' and had ``much better sound quality''.
- distances 7y ago
  FWIW, I joined a Zoom meeting and the audio was all garbled, barely understandable. Don't know if it matters that one user joined with a browser. We switched to Jitsi and the session went very smoothly afterwards.
thdespou 7y ago
It's good that you can look at the source code!
jsilence 7y ago
Ja, have fun in "demo" and "test"! Meet random people who are just as clueless as you. Be nice though!
cjwebb 7y ago
Whilst its great that people are iterating on existing products out there, I feel slightly sad that we just have a load of "alternatives" that don't play nicely with each other. It would be much nicer if I could use FaceTime, whilst speaking to someone on Hangouts, plus someone else on Jitsi. Apart from discovery, what is stopping that? I'm assuming they all use basically the same underlying codecs, of course!
- justaj 7y ago
  Matrix is trying to close that gap, so definitely something to take notice of.
  - cjwebb 7y ago
    This is the first I've heard of it, so thanks for the tip. I'll be reading all of https://matrix.org https://matrix.org tonight!
GordonS 7y ago
Hmm, I wonder if it would be possible to create an "official desktop client" using Electron? Given Jitsi is only reliable with Chrome (for now at least), that might be a more appealing options for users that use different browsers.
- jamesponddotco 7y ago
  It seems like they already did that[1]. [1] https://github.com/jitsi/jitsi-meet-electron https://github.com/jitsi/jitsi-meet-electron
hanoz 7y ago
Looks good but I am hesitant to recommend it to my children's friend's parents (who are all trying to settle on a platform at the moment) because of the ease with which the kids might enter a short room name and find themselves on the recieving end of an unwelcome 'chatroulette experience'. It would be good if the app version could have some parental controls added and/or the web version could enforce a minimum room name length/complexity. Meanwhile, perhaps a browser plugin to enforce that wouldn't be too hard to knock up.
pimterry 7y ago
An interesting anecdote: they're installing Jitsi Meet in all Catalan prisons as we speak, as the go-to option now that visitors are no longer allowed, installed on the existing computers (i.e. prison libraries). They're planning to have Whatsapp setup too as a secondary option, because it's the option with widest reach, but that requires buying a bunch of new mobile phones. More details (in Spanish): https://elpais.com/espana/catalunya/2020-03-24/videollamadas-para-aliviar-la-tension-en-las-carceles.html https://elpais.com/espana/catalunya/2020-03-24/videollamadas...
- severine 7y ago
  Thanks for the info. An interesting related question would be what software are the different national cabinets, states presidencies and other high ranking officials etc using in their daily conferences.
longtermd 7y ago
You should really remove all these negative keywords in your URL: https://meet.jit.si/NorthernLiesImprisonExclusively https://meet.jit.si/NorthernLiesImprisonExclusively "lies" "imprison" ...
ronjouch 7y ago
Linux HNers, is there any video-conferencing software that is hardware-accelerated for us Linux users? Everything I tried (Jitsi on Firefox or Chrome, Skype, Hangouts/Meet, Zoom, Slack) consumes a full CPU all of the time (a.k.a. all no hardware acceleration), making fans spin and slowing down other work. Advice? I'm using Arch Linux & Xorg on a recent Thinkpad with Intel CPU & GPU, and the packages mentioned by the Intel section of https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Hardware_video_acceleration https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Hardware_video_accelera... (intel-media-driver, libva-intel-driver, linux-firmware) are installed.
- jasondclinton 7y ago
  Hardware video decode is coming to Firefox on Wayland: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Firefox-76-VA-API-Formats https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Firefox-...
  - ronjouch 7y ago
    Thanks! So that means H264/VP9-based conferencing (-- EDIT but VP8 isn't mentioned, and that's what WebRTC uses, right? -- EDIT2 oh, VP8 is mentioned in https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/D65536 https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/D65536 , looks accelerated too, cool --) will be accelerated in Firefox on Wayland. Great, one more reason to move away from a wmctrl-dependent script I use, and switch to Wayland. One more question, in case you know about it: - Regarding Zoom/Slack/Skype/etc, okay, I'm not surprised: no one uses Linux, so from a money perspective, fixing this is ill-spent engineer time. - However, I'm surprised that acceleration could be missing in Chrome+Linux too, because Google must have worked on it to ship a good Google Meet experience on Chromebooks. Am I missing anything? (Is there a flag / dependency / binary package I could need to enable it in non-Chromebook Chrome?) Is video acceleration really positively nonexistent on Chrome/Chromium on Linux?
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leppr 7y ago
The mobile application needs some work. The essential and basic operations of creating a room[1] and sharing a link to that room[2] are confusing. Other than that, the video and sound quality were great. [1]: There's no "Go" button and no automatically generated room name like on the web app. [2]: The menu option is hidden two layers deep and is named non-descriptively "Room information".
snoowdogg 7y ago
Great tool! We use Jitsi with our team. Works without problems

897 points by LockAndLol 7y ago

jimbob45 7y ago

What’s up with the name? I’m never going to get my boss on board with a malware-looking name like that.

dandigangi 7y ago
+1 this is an awful name if you want to get anyone serious on board. Seems super scammy.
- ripley12 7y ago
  I don't get a malware/scam vibe from the name, but I'm probably missing something. What makes you think that?
  - systemvoltage 7y ago
    I also think it’s a horrible name, reminds me of “Tootsie” and an equally ugly logo to match. These things are subjective but if enough people hate it, perhaps it’s important to look into it.
    - ummonk 7y ago
      I normally complain about terrible open source branding but didn't have a negative reaction to this branding when I saw this post. Goes to show how important it is to do user research on a broad swath of the population to make sure you have branding that isn't off-putting to a significant subset of people.
      - systemvoltage 7y ago
        Definitely. There is also universal agreement in good branding vs bad branding. I’ve been browsing the top branding blog for over 12 years now: https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/ https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/ Still subjective but let’s compare Jitsi brand with something from https://www.cghnyc.com/ https://www.cghnyc.com/ There is certainly a huge difference even though it’s not a quantitative measure. Jitsi brand just sucks so bad. :(
        distances 7y ago
        I think there's some irony in complaining about "Jitsi" and proving a link to "cghnyc".
  - NikolaNovak 7y ago
    It's a feeling, so not easily rationalizable... I wonder if it has anything to do with being "Gypped" (), but for me even outside of that connotation, the word evokes negative feeling. () Interestingly, I too have for the first time looked up the etymology and feel uncomfortable; I think because I've only ever heard it before, and assumed it was spelled differently like "Jipped" or something https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/12/30/242429836/why-being-gypped-hurts-the-roma-more-than-it-hurts-you https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/12/30/242429836...
- jerrysievert 7y ago
  compared to a name that invokes the church of the subgenius, or its competitor that invokes the alternative: discordianism? jitsi seems quite tame compared to both of those.
- blunte 7y ago
  Again, like the "jimbob" guy above who was objecting to the name Jitsi, I find "dandigangi" to be rather odd and unsettling. If we're going to make names be the cover of the book, then we must all realize that almost any name will be uncomfortable to some audiences.
mikecarlton 7y ago
I was wondering about the name too. From https://jitsi.org/what-is-jitsi/ https://jitsi.org/what-is-jitsi/ : SIP Communicator is renamed Jitsi (from the Bulgarian “жици”, or “wires”), since it now also supports audio and video over XMMP’s Jingle extensions and it would be silly to still call it SIP Communicator.
Brakenshire 7y ago
Slightly surprised by the response, Jitsi seems fine to me. Is it worse than Slack?
- phendrenad2 7y ago
  I've noticed that a lot of people have an aversion to software that doesn't have a name that's made from English word(s). This is possibly because the most common software out there has this property, and so people subconsciously associate it with quality (exceptions abound, of course, Samsung, Adobe, but I think that you need to reach a certain size to break free from the negative stigma in English-speaking countries). Come to think of it, this may be why Linux is still seen as an outsider to non-technical people, as though it were less of a serious product than Windows (which has an English word as a name).
  - Phillipharryt 7y ago
    Adobe is a an English word though. More people are probably now aware of the software than the bricks, but it has a root there.
  - skocznymroczny 7y ago
    The name Linux is not the issue, the fact that it isn't a product might be. Think of Windows or macOS, pick a version, you can picture what it looks like and what apps run on it. Linux isn't a specific product. You can't install Linux 10.15. You might install a specific kernel version, or a specific distro version, but Linux is more of an assemblage of packages rather than one cohesive end-product. And it's not as easy to picture Linux in your mind. One Linux user will use default Ubuntu installation, one Linux user will boot directly to terminal because window managers, and other Linux user will be using Android which is completely different case as well.
- ruffrey 7y ago
  Or “google”
- catblast 7y ago
  Or Skype? ICQ? This thread is quite idiotic.
blunte 7y ago
Ironic that you would suggest "Jitsi" as a (stereo)typically bad name with a username of "jimbob". I guess we all have our own prejudices.
crispinb 7y ago
If your boss is thick enough for vague adolescent impressions to be a significant criterion, your job is at risk.
arendtio 7y ago
Says jimbob45 :D

xiii1408 7y ago

Back in undergrad (ca 2013) when I got super serious about privacy, I used the Jitsi client to videoconference with friends over my XMPP server [1]. It was pretty much the only open-source VoIP solution I could get working at the time. The experience was actually pretty smooth, with quality comparable to Skype and Hangouts at the time. The main pain point was that I had to force everyone to download Jitsi and connect to my XMPP server... Excited to see they're still doing cool stuff! [1]Technically the XMPP server is just session management.

blantonl 7y ago

This is really nice, but who is paying for all the infrastructure and bandwidth? Are there more details?

dabeeeenster 7y ago
https://www.8x8.com/ https://www.8x8.com/ Footer of https://jitsi.org/ https://jitsi.org/
- sahaskatta 7y ago
  Just came across this on HN too: https://www.8x8.vc https://www.8x8.vc
xiii1408 7y ago
It's P2P, like most videoconferencing. The server part is just for session management.
- dabeeeenster 7y ago
  And firewall punching etc
  - makeset 7y ago
    Can firewall punching work without proxying all traffic over the server?
    - jhauris 7y ago
      Yes, if you're using UDP. Check out STUN and TURN.
- tommoor 7y ago
  > like most videoconferencing Well, if there's only 2, maybe 3 of you – anything beyond that is going to use a server to host the call for reliability.

dionisloire 7y ago

We integrated Jitsi meet into Taskade for collaborative task lists, notes, and mind maps, with video chat. You can give our app a try at https://www.taskade.com/new https://www.taskade.com/new (no registration needed, mobile and desktop) Open to any feedback!

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jaequery 7y ago

I agree that it's an awful name but it's a superb app! Can't believe this is open-sourced.

m3kw9 7y ago
Eventually it will up sell more features as in all open source projects aim

rvz 7y ago

That's the problem. This is supposed to be the time for Jitsi to be widely used and is a credible and a privacy-respecting, open-source alternative to Zoom. But will it break out from the free and open source audiences and reach into the mainstream where Zoom is? I hope so and it should. Open-source, iOS and Android apps, self-hosting, video chat and first class web client support are all attractive and competing required features to stand a chance against Zoom and aside from its technical merits, it just needs to be more aggressive in marketing itself to capture some mindshare. Or even the name its should be changed to something less clever and to a more user friendly one which could be a start...

distances 7y ago
I don't know the story behind the name, but I didn't realize it was clever and I do consider it very user friendly -- short, memorable, stands out, easy to pronounce.

Brakenshire 7y ago

I was looking at the Matrix clients yesterday, to set up a video chat room for elderly relatives. Everything seems just a bit too confusing or unpolished. I want something simple, functional and cross platform. At the moment I’m feeling Zoom with scheduled meeting times is probably the best bet. I’ll test this out, but does anyone have any other thoughts, or any non-proprietary recommendations?

kgraves 7y ago
Zoom or Google Hangouts/Meet is your best bet. I have not seen anything better than these unfortunately in the open source world that is as accessible or easy to use as those two.

johnxie 7y ago

We have a lot of experience working with Jitsi Meet, if anyone has questions integrating Jitsi, free to send me an email john@taskade.com. Happy to help!

monksy 7y ago
I found that it had some issues with people connecting via the web clients. Is there a way to mitigate that or is that just expected with the software?
- johnxie 7y ago
  Do you mean some parties are unable to connect? There are some open issues, limitations, and Jitsi Meet does not officially support all browsers. Here is the supported list: https://github.com/jitsi/lib-jitsi-meet/blob/master/modules/browser/capabilities.json https://github.com/jitsi/lib-jitsi-meet/blob/master/modules/... For example, Brave Browser is still not fully supported: https://github.com/jitsi/jitsi-meet/issues/3978 https://github.com/jitsi/jitsi-meet/issues/3978
  - wideasleep1 7y ago
    FWIW, it works great on my Chromebook, meeted up with myself on my Android. Even used x86 Bromite browser on Chromebook, and even blur background worked after a slight delay. Impressive.
    - johnxie 7y ago
      Thank you!
  - MR4D 7y ago
    I’m curious why it works on iPad but not iPhone. (Video doesn’t work on either, but that’s documented)
- cheald 7y ago
  Folks using Brave (or who otherwise have video autoplay turned off) will need to allow autoplay for it to work correctly.

mmanfrin 7y ago

There doesn't appear to be a share-window/share-screen option which feels like that makes this a non-starter for a lot of work-related applications.

d_runs_far 7y ago
there is. Used it today. I deployed it last night on a do droplet and ran some tests with co-workers today.
GordonS 7y ago
I came across Jitsi just the other day, and I was so particularly impressed because it's OSS and does have a screen sharing function.
monksy 7y ago
It works. I hosted a meetup Friday night using it for the jackbox games.
- zemo 7y ago
  how many people were in it? I'm trying to set something up for my family to play Jackbox with more than 10 people, google hangouts caps out at 10 and I don't really want to make everyone set up the zoom app since I'll have to do tech support for everyone. (disclaimer: I work at Jackbox, I'm in charge of the multiplayer servers)
  - monksy 7y ago
    It was about 6 people. We had issues with video and audio going through. For the people who it was working for we didn't have a lot of issues. I'm not sure how the audio went through.(Btw this was on linux) Is Jackbox still chicago based, or is that only the jellyvision side?
    - zemo 7y ago
      yep, still in Chicago, Jackbox and Jellyvision both (although we're completely separate now).

brigandish 7y ago

The home page looks like it was designed by a 20 year old who lives in a world of Javascript package managers. Get someone over 50 in there to kick them and remind them that "Start a new meeting" with things like "LeopardBottomSniffer" appearing under it means nothing to anyone but developers. Here's a better design, in text: - Who are we? This is Jitsi Meet video conferencing - How do I use it? Just type a name for your meeting in the box and get started, you'll be able to share from there. The old line about "can someone's granny use?" this comes to mind. If I seem annoyed, I am, we need successful competitors to things like Zoom and Google but that means getting non-developers to use them.

dddddaviddddd 7y ago
I looked at Jitsi's website and Github yesterday and couldn't find any documentation. For example, it wasn't clear to me why I would want to run Videobridge, or what features Meet has.
- d_runs_far 7y ago
  documentation is the only downfall. I did the step by step for Ubuntu, had it going in no time.
  - brigandish 7y ago
    That's good to know. I'm going to give it a go with a couple of family members who really could use something like this for their businesses. Zoom also suffers from the non-intuitive problem so I was hoping for something a bit better on that front.
vosper 7y ago
> The home page looks like it was designed by a 20 year old who lives in a world of Javascript package managers. > Get someone over 50 in there to kick them and remind them that "Start a new meeting" with things like "LeopardBottomSniffer" appearing under it means nothing to anyone but developers. I think this is a little overly ageist but yeah - if you're not familiar with the kind of URLs generated by services like Gfycat then it looks pretty strange, and it's not really clear what's going on (why is it typing these strange words in the box?)

ISO-morphism 7y ago

I've tried Jitsi Meet and found it to be smooth. During a hangout call with a group of ~8 friends I introduced it as an alternative. User experience comparison: Onboarding: Jitsi: Click a URL. No accounts. Hangouts: Google account. Need to individually invite other Google accounts. Video Quality: Jitsi: Decent, slightly better than hangouts. Hangouts: Passable but grainy. Video Layout: Jitsi: Automatically big-screens current speaker, shows small screens of others. Has option to tile to equally size screens. Hangouts: Same. Conclusion: Friends preferred Hangouts. It's quite disheartening that "average users" shun 1 click URL room creation with superior video and audio quality for manually adding contacts. And that's without any considerations for free software vs. Google panopticon. They would rather tolerate a multi-step process of sharing gmail accounts, asking the same person for their email repeatedly.

judge2020 7y ago
> Hangouts: Google account. Need to individually invite other Google accounts. Hangouts (now Meet) is better geared towards GSuite orgs where you're already logged into Google since you have to be to access almost all of your other internal company/school resources, including gmail. It also solves the contacts problem since everyone will be in the company directory.
- ISO-morphism 7y ago
  > Hangouts (now Meet) Ah-ha! Google Hangouts Meet is indeed the GSuite video conferencing solution, complemented by Google Hangouts Chat, the GSuite Slack competitor. Google Hangouts is "deprecated" but still alive, and with a plain-old gmail account I don't see an option to use Hangouts Chat nor Hangouts Meet, only Hangouts. As a user in a GSuite org, Chat and Meet exist, and plain-old Hangouts text messages are mirrored in Chat, but the video conferencing is still weirdly separate from Meet.
  - modzu 7y ago
    sounds about right until this time next year
  - 7y ago

neves 7y ago

We are using it intensely at my company and after some server upgrades it is working very well.

neves 7y ago
We've more than 500 simultaneous users.
- yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
  > We've more than 500 simultaneous users. 1. Wow, 2. Anything special required to pull that off?
- amikazmi 7y ago
  When you write 500 simultaneous users, do you mean: 1. 500 users making multiple calls across our servers at the same time? 2. 500 users on a single call?
  - neves 7y ago
    It's 1. Big groups in one conference didn't work as well.
christefano 7y ago
What server-specific upgrades did you do? How did you tune it?

brewdad 7y ago

How well does Jitsi scale? Can it handle a group of say 15 or so participants on a variety of devices?

warrenm 7y ago
I've had several connecting via hotspotting their phone on a single CPU, 2G VPS
- enriquto 7y ago
  Several how many? 5 or 25 ? Can I reliably teach to a small classroom using it?
  - warrenm 7y ago
    5 And their connections sucked But my Jitsi instance was fine
ElijahLynn 7y ago
It is based on WebRTC, so the actual video data doesn't pass through a central server. Google Duo uses this same technology. There _is_ a central server but that is just to glue all the handshakes together. The video/audio don't pass through it, it is all peer-to-peer, so scaling is more so on the client application and the available bandwidth. WebRTC dynamically changes the bitrate of the stream depending on connection though, so it should scale nicely. I haven't tried a large conference on meet.jit.si yet though, only 1:1. But if there are performance issues it is likely the client application itself that needs performance tuning.
- cheald 7y ago
  That's true for 1:1, but 1:2+ does go through the server. It's scaled quite well for us, though.
nemoniac 7y ago
I've been doing sessions with 20 participants without any problem.

monksy 7y ago

In trying to get this to work on a multi site configured server. My friend and I got it working. He wrote up a guide to getting it working on Centos. https://antipaucity.com/2020/03/20/basic-dockerized-jitsi-deployment-with-an-apache-reverse-proxy-on-centos/ https://antipaucity.com/2020/03/20/basic-dockerized-jitsi-de...

fuddle 7y ago

I'm seeing a certificate error on the https://jitsi.net/ https://jitsi.net/ domain. Not a great sign.

ElijahLynn 7y ago
jitsi.org and meet.jit.si are the 2 URLs that come up in search. jitsi.net isn't one of them, fwiw.

crazygringo 7y ago

I'm curious... between Whereby and Jitsi and I assume other browser-based video solutions relying on WebRTC... ...how big is the barrier these days to building a "videoconferencing platform" supporting millions of people... that runs on a single server? Because if you need to do is build a pretty website that essentially just keeps track of meeting names and the names and IP addresses of participants... ...while each client is P2P-streaming their full-res videostream while speaking or other participants have them pinned... and every other client is P2P-streaming a low-res videostream to power the thumbnails (and similar decisions about which computer is the main audio source and when, or picking a single peer to serve as the audio mixer)... What else is there to do, really? (I mean obviously there's fancy stuff you can add like screensharing, chat, authentication, etc... and browser-specific bugfixes and quirks presumably...) But are we at a point where anyone can write a functional videoconferencing platform in a week, and platforms are differentiating mainly on nicer UX and extra features? Or is there something huge I'm missing here, where implementing WebRTC is somehow a lot harder than it seems, and/or still requires server farms to route the streams through in certain cases?

ricardobeat 7y ago
It doesn't scale well beyond a handful of people. You need *N bandwidth to send and receive, and without a thing called 'simulcast' (creating multiple, different quality stream simultaneously) which doesn't have good browser support the quality is defined by the lowest common denominator. A central server solves many, many issues that result in better quality. Jitsi itself barely works on Firefox and not at all on mobile devices (without their app).
- Naac 7y ago
  On Linux at least, it simply does not work on Firefox. Something with webrtc, but I can't get video to work. Basically, it's a known issue [0] and the response is that maybe it'll get fixed eventually :( [0] https://community.jitsi.org/t/browser-support-warning-when-using-the-latest-firefox-71-0-version-on-meet-jit-si/21180 https://community.jitsi.org/t/browser-support-warning-when-u... EDIT: It seems firefox-stable works OK.
- 7y ago

jpdus 7y ago

The main reasons for Zooms popularity (and in general the most important features of a videoconferencing software) are accessibility and reliability. Same as with Slack/IRC - privacy is not the most important features in that space. If I have the choice of a working solution with some minor privacy issues and a solution which will never be adopted b/c half of the people will not be able to join or their experience is miserable, I will gladly take the former (except for the most delicate conversations maybe). (And I am someone who takes privacy serious in most cases...)

swiley 7y ago
Zoom’s privacy issues are more than minor, if my friends started using it and I couldn’t get the web version to work I wouldn’t do a conference call with them.
- anon102010 7y ago
  Can I ask if you are using video conferencing in a business setting? When folks are trying to get stuff done in tough circumstances NO ONE has ANY patience for the home built / funky / privacy enhanced multi-click setup. Especially not the top executives now dialing in from home who aren't tech forward. IT doesn't want to trouble shoot things either - all of a sudden you have 1000+ folks video conferencing. I'd be interested in these dealbreaker privacy problems in the current client.
  - swiley 7y ago
    We're using webex at work but I've used half a dozen different tools so far with friends (no FOSS ones unfortunately) and they all work about as well.
    - anon102010 7y ago
      I used to use webex more, but zoom just had had some incredible mindshare growth. Its literally the first suggestion it seems when there is a problem with a conference setup. Latency is also good on zoom which makes the audio side nicer in my experience.

wenc 7y ago

I wonder if anyone (who also has Zoom) could comment on how Jitsi actually compares to Zoom for 20+ people with full video? (since the title pits it against Zoom) I'm seeing comments how how good Jitsi is, but can someone categorically say Jitsi is comparable to or better than Zoom? The advantages of Zoom are ease of setup, smooth simultaneous video experience (tiled) for 20+ participants, and breakout rooms. The experience is so good that I was convinced to fork out my own money for a personal subscription. If Jitsi can do all of the above, I'd be inclined to try it out for my next meeting.

paulryanrogers 7y ago
Beyond a certain scale there's also Big Blue Button, though it was very lecture focused last I tried it
- qpiox 7y ago
  We started using BigBlueButton at the the University. I tried to teach and there is nothing in it that is specifically lecture focused, but if you just use it as videoconferencing tool with all microphones muted, it does the job for a one-way communication tool. Once students start asking questions it is too limited. The chat clutters soon, the option for raising hands or changing status is useless with large groups. I'd say that the whole interface is useful only for smaller groups up to 10 persons, definitely not above 100 persons. I have not tried Zoom or Jitsi Meet in such settings and can't compare. They both have some useful options and slightly more options than Big Blue Button (like the Youtube streaming in Jitsi Meet that will save bandwidth).

enriquto 7y ago

It's very disheartening that when you try to connect with firefox, it says you should use chrome. This is a direct stab in the heart of the people who would favor it over zoom because it is free software.

surround 7y ago
Zoom also recommends Chrome [1]. As other users said, the issue is probably with Firefox’s simulcast, not Jitsi. [1] https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/214629443-Zoom-Web-Client https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/214629443-Zoom-Web...
undefined-1 7y ago
It worked better for me in Firefox than Chromium.
fergbrain 7y ago
I use it with Firefox and it works just fine
- Naac 7y ago
  What version of Firefox? What OS? Can confirm Firefox-dev on Linux has no working video.
  - lytedev 7y ago
    Firefox preview on my phone in desktop mode worked FWIW.
    - skylerwshaw 7y ago
      If that's on iOS, you're not actually using Firefox since it uses Apple's Webkit.
      - surround 7y ago

Naac 7y ago

Is the Android App open source? I haven't been able to find the source code for the play store app on the jitsi github account.

wideasleep1 7y ago
I got it off FDroid, so...
kragen 7y ago
Yes, it is.

tekknolagi 7y ago

To the authors, if they see this: I'm trying to use this to call my mother and we are both just looking at our own faces. I've confirmed -- via separate video call on phones -- that we're at the same URL, both look connected, and both have camera permissions. There's no indication that anything is wrong on either of our computers.

mixmastamyk 7y ago
Great for narcissists.

EGreg 7y ago

What about a web based WebRTC solution? So people don’t have to download anything?

Brakenshire 7y ago
I’m fairly certain this can run in the browser, although it seems to default to an app download on mobile.
- OrgNet 7y ago
  In Firefox, if you click the 3-dots and then "Request desktop site", it let's you use the website for video conferencing... (which should be the default even for mobile)
warrenm 7y ago
I've only used it Web-based Nothing to download, if you don't want to

wintorez 7y ago

It's actually impressive!

andrepd 7y ago

I was wondering just now why in the midst of all this remote working boom Jitsi Meet is seldom mention. Jitsi Meet has been absolutely stellar every time I've used it. Great interface, not bloated even when running in a browser with 10+ other people, plenty of options to manage conferences with many people (raise-your-hand button, selective muting/soloing, etc). Creating a chat is as easy as typing a name and hitting enter, no account needed! And getting somebody to join is as simple as clicking a link to meet.jitsi.net/yourchatroomname. On top of that it's open source and end to end encrypted. Disclaimer: no affiliation, just a happy user.

surround 7y ago
Jitsi meet is not end-to-end encrypted [1]. Rather, it is encrypted with TLS between the client and the server, which doesn’t provide the same security/privacy benefit at all. The website says it’s “fully encrypted,” which I think is misleading. [1] https://github.com/jitsi/jitsi-meet/blob/master/README.md#security https://github.com/jitsi/jitsi-meet/blob/master/README.md#se... Edit: WebRTC does not support end-to-end encryption for multiple peers. This means it’s impossible for any browser-supported videoconferencing platform to support e2e encryption, including Zoom and Jitsi. This is where Jitsi actually has a unique advantage - it can be self hosted, which offers the same security benefits as e2e encryption.
- emcho 7y ago
  Signaling is indeed over HTTPS and media is encrypted with DTLS-SRTP. No browsers today support end-to-end encryption for multiparty calls. The advantage that Jitsi offers there is that you can stand it up on your own server in just a few minutes and get protection that is equivalent to end-to-end encryption.
  - surround 7y ago
    Coincidentally, the edit I made to my comment is nearly identical to your comment. But now I’m outside the 1 hour window of being able to edit.

amrx101 7y ago

I can't seem to schedule meeting like Zoom?

bonestamp2 7y ago
I assume the use case there is that you create a meeting and then put the link in the calendar invite that you send. But, I'd like to know more about how long your "own" that meeting URL before it expires. I'll ask in the jitsi forums.
- jdmac 7y ago
  The meeting technically exists as long as there are participants. Anyone can join the url so if you pick something unique and hard to guess you'll probably be the only one to ever use it.

Nextgrid 7y ago

I looked at Jitsi recently as I was thinking about self-hosting it (I have the bandwidth). My concerns: It seems to be based on XMPP and require an XMPP server. They offer a quick-start guide on configuring it however I am not sure how secure the default configuration is - I'm worried the quick start guide is about "get it working", not "make it secure" and I don't have XMPP knowledge nor the desire to learn a complicated protocol just to be able to run this securely. Why does it need an XMPP server? I do not want nor care about XMPP and everyone will be joining via browsers anyway. As far as I'm concerned it's just one (very big) moving part that I don't want to be responsible for. Overall it left a sour & sad taste in my mouth. There's no way I'm putting this thing on the public Internet; the attack surface seems too large and too many opportunities to screw it up.

manquer 7y ago
Jitsi uses XMPP(prosody) for MUC- basically coordination and control of sessions. XMPP is not exposed directly to the user, they use a BOSH client abstraction to convert that to http. It is actually good design and scales well. we have scaled the bridge to 500 plus concurrent sessions without lot of production tuning in non P2P mode (generally harder more resource intensive).
- Nextgrid 7y ago
  > BOSH client abstraction to convert that to http This still means the outside world can interact with the XMPP server, correct? If so then this is my concern - an XMPP server seems like a huge attack surface for the tiny bit of functionality Jitsi needs (I'm confident it's using less than 10% of the actual capabilities of the XMPP server, which means the rest of the code paths are mostly untested in this scenario and are ripe for abuse and potential exploits). In your case, is this an internal server or is it open to the Internet?
  - manquer 7y ago
    It is authenticated, i.e. only logged in users have access. Prosody is well tested XMPP implementation and is used in many production application. meet.jit.si is unauthenticated deployment and many people use it. I wouldn't call it a tiny bit of functionality, MUC and SFU are the two main components of any video conferencing solution. XMPP helps provide MUC capability, Jicofo is the component you can see the implementation here https://github.com/jitsi/jicofo https://github.com/jitsi/jicofo BOSH does not allow all operations available via XMPP standard, there are restrictions possible, to maintain security.

nafizh 7y ago

How does this work for normal video calling e.g. calling your parents? Every time I want to talk with them, sharing a video link with them first seems to create a friction. I badly want an alternative to the awful Skype.

cheald 7y ago

We switched from Slack to Mattermost internally, and while setting it up I noticed Jitsi integration offered. I've been really impressed by it, and we're working to move most meetings to it. Some teams are still using Zoom, but I don't think that's going to last very long! My Brazilian Jiujitsu academy is trying it out, too, for virtual classes during shutdown. We just held the first today, and a bunch of non-technical parents were able to get things set up for their kids so that we could all attend a class together. It worked quite well. Given the price, it's a really impressive piece of software.

Bellyache5 7y ago
So the Jiujitsu academy is now practicing Jiujitsi!

josh_blum 7y ago

Recently started using this and found it very seamless. There is a Keybase chat bot to drop meeting links into your conversation so you can jump on a call: https://keybase.io/jitsibot/chat https://keybase.io/jitsibot/chat

lpnotes 7y ago

I'm the creator of a remote-first community/open source project called CodeBuddies (a not-for-profit), and we built Jitsi into our hangouts (meetings anyone can schedule to pair program or study together) -- i.e. whenever someone schedules a hangout to meet with someone else in the community, we embed Jitsi as an iframe onto the event page. We initially used Google Hangouts for the project in 2014, and we've been using Jitsi ever since Google Hangouts deprecated its API in 2017. I generally love Jitsi; like Google Hangouts, it allows multiple people to screenshare simultaneously in our virtual coworking sessions. However, I have stumbled upon a couple of issues with it: - higher rates of audio or screensharing issues, especially when the participants are long distance or if one of them has a poor wifi connection, or is on an older computer. - screensharing with the browser extension sometimes doesn't work, or times out We're actually rebuilding the CodeBuddies platform right now, and for the next iteration I am strongly considering paying for the Zoom API instead because it's more accessible to people with lower quality wifi connections and for folks on older machines.

opan 7y ago
Have you tried reporting these issues?

P4u1 7y ago

I've been using Jitsi for a while, even though my company uses GSuite. Not going into details about the corporate use since many have already, but the other day it was my daughter's birthday, being on a quarantine and all and having family in different countries, I sent a jisi link to the family groups on whatsapp so we could all sing happy birthday together, everybody got in, it went all very smoothly. Better than the usual business meeting "can you hear me, I hear you, hello" routine. Thank you Jitsi team!

the_arun 7y ago

What is their(Jitsi's) business model if it is free? How do they keep themselves up?

behnamoh 7y ago
Exactly my question. The old adage "if you're not paying for it then you're the product" makes me worried to try Jitsi, unless they come out clean about their business model.
ryukafalz 7y ago
They're currently owned by a VoIP provider that I would guess uses some of the Jitsi tech in-house. They've been through a few acquisitions at this point and continue to maintain their free software, so I'm optimistic they'll continue to do so.

deleted 7y ago

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eagsalazar2 7y ago

Is this really as good as zoom? Zoom's UX is terrible, the only reason it has taken over is because they are better at preserving audio quality and doing echo cancellation than previous contenders.

itsalidoe 7y ago

Any of the founding team here for Jitsi? I am helping a friend build a virtual community and this solution is perfect but we need a bit of help getting started. Would love to connect jiwanix@gmail.com!

dang 7y ago

Discussed a few weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22477785 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22477785

maxnoe 7y ago

I deployed it using the docker compose Config for my university group in our rancher cluster: https://github.com/jitsi-mee/docker-jitsi-meet https://github.com/jitsi-mee/docker-jitsi-meet We now use it for most meetings, works very well so far, several sessions in parallel with several dozen people at the same time (but mostly only using audio). Screen sharing works fine as well. We made the experience that they are unfortunately right about requiring chrome (chromium works fine as well). Would be great if firefox support could come back.

maxnoe 7y ago
Correct link: https://github.com/jitsi/docker-jitsi-meet https://github.com/jitsi/docker-jitsi-meet
JeremyNT 7y ago
It seems to work in Firefox despite the browser warning. What do you use for authentication? Do you have an existing ldap server? I spooled up a server for neighbors and family to use on my personal vps and the user account management promises to be problematic using the internal auth mechanism.
- maxnoe 7y ago
  Yes, I connected our existing ldap for moderators and allow guests. So one authenticated user is required per session and the rest can be anyone.
- maxnoe 7y ago
  Several other comments have touched on this, but firefox unfortunately while it seems to work creates issues, even for the other participants. It just seems a lot less stable as soon as several firefox clients connect.

sidcool 7y ago

I am sorry if this is already answered, but what is the revenue model and how do they afford a network intensive tool like video conferencing? BTW, I loved it.

johnxie 7y ago
8x8 acquired Jitsi from Atlassian some time ago, see https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/29/atlassian-sells-jitsi-an-open-source-videoconferencing-tool-it-acquired-in-2015-to-8x8/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/29/atlassian-sells-jitsi-an-o...
- sidcool 7y ago
  Ok, but still, how does 8x8 gain earn?

willmacdonald 7y ago

Has anyone tried the captioning features of hangouts meet. Amazing technology! Live dictation of everything said.

BrandiATMuhkuh 7y ago

We used it for a couple of month but we had 3 main issues 1) for whatever reason the stability dropped significantly during that period. The first 1-2 month, all was fine. After that, we constantly lost people (we are in NZ, EU, America's, Asia). Maybe the demand grew but they didn't scale the servers 2) sometimes we want to quickly share our editor/screen. Sadly the compression makes it impossible to read text (zoom correctly shows text) 3) we are often in countries with heavy censorship (UAE, China). Only zoom really works. Not even meet, slack-video, Skype works

jhoechtl 7y ago

Does it fully work on Linux Wayland?

buovjaga 7y ago

The renovated videobridge will soon get into stable packages: https://community.jitsi.org/t/jvb-2-considered-stable/24314 https://community.jitsi.org/t/jvb-2-considered-stable/24314 More about the renovation effort: https://jitsi.org/news/jvb-2-0-preparing-our-video-router-for-the-next-10-years-of-video-conferencing/ https://jitsi.org/news/jvb-2-0-preparing-our-video-router-fo...

jbergens 7y ago

I am afraid that the free model of their service will not work very well if tens of thousands of teams start to use this now. It is easier to trust the known brands and organizations that also charges a bit when you use their system a lot.

saghul 7y ago
Most of the Jitsi devs are employed by 8x8, which offers a service based on it: https://8x8.vc https://8x8.vc and it also integrates it in Virtual Office, it's core product. Disclaimer: I work for 8x8.
cl3misch 7y ago
The main feature is that you can host Jitsi Meet yourself. You don't depend on their servers for performance nor data privacy.

leonroy 7y ago

Also easy to skin and deploy - we setup a custom branded instance for our customers to use during the pandemic within a couple of days: https://meet.brring.com/ https://meet.brring.com/ It’s rather incredible what it can do: * SIP gateway to support inbound telephony dial in * Meeting recording * Auto scaling of the video bridges to dynamically handle load * Native iOS, Android and even Apple Watch clients All free, all open source. The install videos are also really good indeed: https://jitsi.org/news/tag/tutorial/ https://jitsi.org/news/tag/tutorial/

jdiez17 7y ago
I also deployed a Jitsi instance and was surprised how easy it was. I have two questions for you: 1. Do you see high CPU usage when there are multiple conferences with a few participants happening simultaneously? 2. How did you set up conference recording? I know Jibri exists but the installation instructions are quite confusing. It seems you need a VM per conference you want to record. Is that the case?
- leonroy 7y ago
  1. Yes, it has pretty high CPU usage unfortunately and that’s despite the attempts of Jitsi to offload h264 encoding onto the clients. You could in theory lock it to standard definition video though which would reduce CPU usage a lot. 2. We did not on this instance but we did using their Docker instance which was very straightforward to setup: https://github.com/jitsi/docker-jitsi-meet#jitsi-broadcasting-infrastructure-configuration https://github.com/jitsi/docker-jitsi-meet#jitsi-broadcastin... I don’t believe it needs a VM per conference - maybe a ffmpeg process per instance? Here's the Jitsi architecture which best I can tell shows JIBRI (recording part) as a separate, single container: https://i.imgur.com/oDSRzF4.png https://i.imgur.com/oDSRzF4.png

enitihas 7y ago

I think it shows the sheer incompetence of Google product management that they managed to lose the strong hold Gtalk had. Gtalk worked. People liked it. Hangouts too worked well. I used hangouts in browser in 2013 and it worked very well. Somehow google decided to replace hangouts with allo and duo, and then deprecated allo, and moved to RCS. I never understand how such decisions get made. Do they think customers have infinite loyalty and will move to any new product launched by the company. A lot of people I know used hangouts. Very few use Duo.

mixmastamyk 7y ago
No compelling revenue stream, to a company the size of Google. Probably seen as a fun project that got boring once the hard work (of fixing bugs) started.

highhedgehog 7y ago

how is this economically sustainable?

pgt 7y ago

If I can offer some UX feedback, the golden rule of all UX design is to eliminate question marks. The typing animation in the placeholder draws all my attention. Puzzled, I tried to make sense of ForwardShelvesCollapseClose for several seconds, when I should have been reading the landing page copy. The principle to design by omission is to ask if an element answers the question you want me to ask, or raises the question you want me to ask, e.g. 1. "How much does it cost?" 2. "Where do I buy it?" 3. "How do I share it?"

cptwunderlich 7y ago

I've tried jitsi for a group chat with friends, but the CPU usage went to the roof and we had other problems too. Apparently that's an issue with Firefox, as I've learned here. Anyway, we were using talky.io, which is also a WebRTC based solution and it worked really well. No registration, good Audio/Video quality, screen sharing. No background blurring though, if that's what you need.

mindfreeze_ 7y ago

We tried Jitsi recently and it works really well https://twitter.com/vibhoothi/status/1241645013299167232 https://twitter.com/vibhoothi/status/1241645013299167232

deleted 7y ago

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daffy 7y ago

I tried suggesting Jitsi for Zoom to a group. I didn't attend the first meeting, but they said they tested both and found that Zoom was ``much more stable'' and had ``much better sound quality''.

distances 7y ago
FWIW, I joined a Zoom meeting and the audio was all garbled, barely understandable. Don't know if it matters that one user joined with a browser. We switched to Jitsi and the session went very smoothly afterwards.

thdespou 7y ago

It's good that you can look at the source code!

jsilence 7y ago

Ja, have fun in "demo" and "test"! Meet random people who are just as clueless as you. Be nice though!

cjwebb 7y ago

Whilst its great that people are iterating on existing products out there, I feel slightly sad that we just have a load of "alternatives" that don't play nicely with each other. It would be much nicer if I could use FaceTime, whilst speaking to someone on Hangouts, plus someone else on Jitsi. Apart from discovery, what is stopping that? I'm assuming they all use basically the same underlying codecs, of course!

justaj 7y ago
Matrix is trying to close that gap, so definitely something to take notice of.
- cjwebb 7y ago
  This is the first I've heard of it, so thanks for the tip. I'll be reading all of https://matrix.org https://matrix.org tonight!

GordonS 7y ago

Hmm, I wonder if it would be possible to create an "official desktop client" using Electron? Given Jitsi is only reliable with Chrome (for now at least), that might be a more appealing options for users that use different browsers.

jamesponddotco 7y ago
It seems like they already did that[1]. [1] https://github.com/jitsi/jitsi-meet-electron https://github.com/jitsi/jitsi-meet-electron

hanoz 7y ago

Looks good but I am hesitant to recommend it to my children's friend's parents (who are all trying to settle on a platform at the moment) because of the ease with which the kids might enter a short room name and find themselves on the recieving end of an unwelcome 'chatroulette experience'. It would be good if the app version could have some parental controls added and/or the web version could enforce a minimum room name length/complexity. Meanwhile, perhaps a browser plugin to enforce that wouldn't be too hard to knock up.

pimterry 7y ago

An interesting anecdote: they're installing Jitsi Meet in all Catalan prisons as we speak, as the go-to option now that visitors are no longer allowed, installed on the existing computers (i.e. prison libraries). They're planning to have Whatsapp setup too as a secondary option, because it's the option with widest reach, but that requires buying a bunch of new mobile phones. More details (in Spanish): https://elpais.com/espana/catalunya/2020-03-24/videollamadas-para-aliviar-la-tension-en-las-carceles.html https://elpais.com/espana/catalunya/2020-03-24/videollamadas...

severine 7y ago
Thanks for the info. An interesting related question would be what software are the different national cabinets, states presidencies and other high ranking officials etc using in their daily conferences.

longtermd 7y ago

You should really remove all these negative keywords in your URL: https://meet.jit.si/NorthernLiesImprisonExclusively https://meet.jit.si/NorthernLiesImprisonExclusively "lies" "imprison" ...

ronjouch 7y ago

Linux HNers, is there any video-conferencing software that is hardware-accelerated for us Linux users? Everything I tried (Jitsi on Firefox or Chrome, Skype, Hangouts/Meet, Zoom, Slack) consumes a full CPU all of the time (a.k.a. all no hardware acceleration), making fans spin and slowing down other work. Advice? I'm using Arch Linux & Xorg on a recent Thinkpad with Intel CPU & GPU, and the packages mentioned by the Intel section of https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Hardware_video_acceleration https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Hardware_video_accelera... (intel-media-driver, libva-intel-driver, linux-firmware) are installed.

jasondclinton 7y ago
Hardware video decode is coming to Firefox on Wayland: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Firefox-76-VA-API-Formats https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Firefox-...
- ronjouch 7y ago
  Thanks! So that means H264/VP9-based conferencing (-- EDIT but VP8 isn't mentioned, and that's what WebRTC uses, right? -- EDIT2 oh, VP8 is mentioned in https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/D65536 https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/D65536 , looks accelerated too, cool --) will be accelerated in Firefox on Wayland. Great, one more reason to move away from a wmctrl-dependent script I use, and switch to Wayland. One more question, in case you know about it: - Regarding Zoom/Slack/Skype/etc, okay, I'm not surprised: no one uses Linux, so from a money perspective, fixing this is ill-spent engineer time. - However, I'm surprised that acceleration could be missing in Chrome+Linux too, because Google must have worked on it to ship a good Google Meet experience on Chromebooks. Am I missing anything? (Is there a flag / dependency / binary package I could need to enable it in non-Chromebook Chrome?) Is video acceleration really positively nonexistent on Chrome/Chromium on Linux?

deleted 7y ago

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leppr 7y ago

The mobile application needs some work. The essential and basic operations of creating a room[1] and sharing a link to that room[2] are confusing. Other than that, the video and sound quality were great. [1]: There's no "Go" button and no automatically generated room name like on the web app. [2]: The menu option is hidden two layers deep and is named non-descriptively "Room information".

snoowdogg 7y ago

Great tool! We use Jitsi with our team. Works without problems