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> Offer a comparable alternative, then Here's a few: - https://meet.jit.si/ which you can also self host https://github.com/jitsi - https://bigbluebutton.

> Offer a comparable alternative, then Here's a few: - https://meet.jit.si/ which you can also self host https://github.com/jitsi - https://bigbluebutton.org/ which you can also self host https://github.com/bigbluebutton I've found that they're especially useful, when integrated with Rocket.Chat https://rocket.chat/ https://rocket.chat/ which you can also self host https://github.com/RocketChat https://github.com/RocketChat That way you have an experience that's a lot like Slack/Teams, with pretty good support for chat, reactions, file uploads, discussions, making quotes etc., while also being able to start video/audio calls with the press of a single button. Of course, if that's too many platforms, Rocket.Chat also supports WebRTC, albeit the UX was a bit less stellar when i last tried it. Alternatively, there is also Nextcloud Talk, which can integrate with your instance of Nextcloud and allow for file sharing, chatting etc., though personally i found Rocket.Chat to be more usable: https://nextcloud.com/talk/ https://nextcloud.com/talk/ Regardless, those are some very competent options which allow all the data to remain on your own servers.

cpncrunch 5y ago
Yes, there are many self-hosted options out there. https://github.com/meetecho/janus-gateway https://github.com/meetecho/janus-gateway works well for multi-party video with up to about 15 users in a room assuming everyone has a reasonably reliable connection.
- foresto 5y ago
  Janus caught my attention when I was looking at WebRTC servers (SFUs) last year, but I couldn't find any good FOSS web apps for it. Do any exist?
  - cpncrunch 5y ago
    It is a complete video conferencing package by itself, so you generally don't need anything else. It just works out of the box to give you multi-party video conferencing across multiple rooms. We use it in our (closed source) online tutoring / whiteboard software, and it is pretty easy to integrate, by taking their videoroom sample code. What is it you're looking for?
    - foresto 5y ago
      I didn't see a video conference web app. I did find the Video Room on the demos page, but it doesn't look suitable for real-world use. I didn't notice anything better in a quick scan of the janus-gateway github page, nor in debian's list of janus* packages. Perhaps I'm overlooking something?
saurik 5y ago
AdmiralAsshat's point was that all of the alternatives sucked because they were difficult or flakey to use: they weren't "comparable". Notably, the alternatives being mentioned as non-comparable weren't even trying to be local: they were remote service/ (which if you think Zoom is particularly bad, is still an improvement) built by giant companies that have tons of resources to have an army working on just these tools... and they all still sucked. You then responded to this comment by just matter-of-factly asserting that you had the list of missing alternatives... but, really, you are simply hijacking the thread to point out that alternatives exist "which allows all the data to remain on your own servers"; but, you provide no evidence or argument to address whether these products are actually "comparable" (to the point where it just feels like you didn't even understand the point being made) in a way that, say, Google Hangouts--which is the product Google created WebRTC for!--isn't.
- lrvick 5y ago
  I use https://meet.jit.si/ https://meet.jit.si/ daily and can confirm it is easier to use than Zoom or Hangouts. No nag screens trying to get me to install desktop clients or trying to get me to create an account or give up personal information. It just works.
  - saddlerustle 5y ago
    Like all apps that are "just" WebRTC, jitsi doesn't work well on networks with persistently high packet loss. A VC app needs to work reliably 99.99% of the time, not just 99% of the time.
    - gregsadetsky 5y ago
      Agreed. I suggested Jitsi to a few university professors early in the pandemic last year. They used it for a good 6 months, with classes of about 20 people, 2-3 times a week. The experience of not having to login and fuss with accounts was great. However, when everyone had their cameras on + screen sharing, audio quality typically suffered. These professors since moved on to use Zoom and it’s way more stable. I don’t like Zoom generally (for many of the reasons noted in this thread), but it’s definitely reliable.
schmorptron 5y ago
Element, too!
- Akronymus 5y ago
  Element actually uses jitsi.
  - schmorptron 5y ago
    Oh right, they're just planning to get voice and video working over matrix natively in the semi near future
    - Arathorn 5y ago
      it’s working already actually (in alpha) :)
okprod 5y ago
I think the OP meant options that are as "easy" as click on a link and join a meeting. I use BBB and Mumble but there are others I know who would never know how to set up their own instance or even what github is.
- lrvick 5y ago
  This is why multiple companies exist to sell you one-click hosted instances of these without lock-in.
  - yorwba 5y ago
    Yeah, the press release https://datenschutz-hamburg.de/pressemitteilungen/2021/08/2021-08-16-senatskanzlei-zoom https://datenschutz-hamburg.de/pressemitteilungen/2021/08/20... mentions that (in addition to a nameless internal videoconferencing tool) Hamburg uses Dataport as a vendor, which seems to imply Jitsi Meet: https://video.openws.de/ https://video.openws.de/
- FiReaNG3L 5y ago
  jitsi is exactly that, been using it for the whole pandemic for meetings for my team of 10 ppl, never had an issue.
  - krageon 5y ago
    Jitsi won't consistently work at scale and is (like most webrtc only applications) a terror to debug. You can basically forget about using it with someone that has issues.
taf2 5y ago
I like your line reasoning… but the problem with video conferencing isn’t really technical- IMO it’s all about the User experience (UX). Zoom by far beats the competition in this regard. It’s UI could be better but compared the mess of competitors it’s far more straightforward … just my opinion…
- ratww 5y ago
  I don't think Zoom "beats" anyone in UX, especially with the dark patterns. They're just popular. I've seen countless times hundreds of people unable to activate the "Computer Audio" option on company-wide meetings because it's in a secondary tab with zero-affordance. Recently they made it very hard to find the "gallery mode" icon (you have to hover a dark area). They also make it borderline impossible to open it on the browser, forcing multiple reloads or whatnot (the method it changes all the time). Honestly Jitsi, BBB and even Teams are all better IMO.
  - cycomanic 5y ago
    One of my pet-peeves with the zoom UX is that it always switches to full-screen mode if someone is sharing the screen. This is particularly annoying if you are also using the participant or chat windows (because there's voting or chat messages etc.) and if you are switching between different presenters (meaning it switches again and again to full screen). Why can't it respect my decision to not have a full-screen window?!
hrjfjjfjfjd 5y ago
BBB was a mess. It's security and privacy may be great on paper (open source, self hosted). But that's the lawyer's side. In practice: BBB had server-side mute, so your muted microphone would still send audio to the server. Servers could be compromised through uploaded documents (processed by LibreOffice). The biggest problems might have been fixed by now. But self hosting half baked software isn't an alternative to most.

cpncrunch 5y ago

Yes, there are many self-hosted options out there. https://github.com/meetecho/janus-gateway https://github.com/meetecho/janus-gateway works well for multi-party video with up to about 15 users in a room assuming everyone has a reasonably reliable connection.

foresto 5y ago
Janus caught my attention when I was looking at WebRTC servers (SFUs) last year, but I couldn't find any good FOSS web apps for it. Do any exist?
- cpncrunch 5y ago
  It is a complete video conferencing package by itself, so you generally don't need anything else. It just works out of the box to give you multi-party video conferencing across multiple rooms. We use it in our (closed source) online tutoring / whiteboard software, and it is pretty easy to integrate, by taking their videoroom sample code. What is it you're looking for?
  - foresto 5y ago
    I didn't see a video conference web app. I did find the Video Room on the demos page, but it doesn't look suitable for real-world use. I didn't notice anything better in a quick scan of the janus-gateway github page, nor in debian's list of janus* packages. Perhaps I'm overlooking something?

saurik 5y ago

AdmiralAsshat's point was that all of the alternatives sucked because they were difficult or flakey to use: they weren't "comparable". Notably, the alternatives being mentioned as non-comparable weren't even trying to be local: they were remote service/ (which if you think Zoom is particularly bad, is still an improvement) built by giant companies that have tons of resources to have an army working on just these tools... and they all still sucked. You then responded to this comment by just matter-of-factly asserting that you had the list of missing alternatives... but, really, you are simply hijacking the thread to point out that alternatives exist "which allows all the data to remain on your own servers"; but, you provide no evidence or argument to address whether these products are actually "comparable" (to the point where it just feels like you didn't even understand the point being made) in a way that, say, Google Hangouts--which is the product Google created WebRTC for!--isn't.

lrvick 5y ago
I use https://meet.jit.si/ https://meet.jit.si/ daily and can confirm it is easier to use than Zoom or Hangouts. No nag screens trying to get me to install desktop clients or trying to get me to create an account or give up personal information. It just works.
- saddlerustle 5y ago
  Like all apps that are "just" WebRTC, jitsi doesn't work well on networks with persistently high packet loss. A VC app needs to work reliably 99.99% of the time, not just 99% of the time.
  - gregsadetsky 5y ago
    Agreed. I suggested Jitsi to a few university professors early in the pandemic last year. They used it for a good 6 months, with classes of about 20 people, 2-3 times a week. The experience of not having to login and fuss with accounts was great. However, when everyone had their cameras on + screen sharing, audio quality typically suffered. These professors since moved on to use Zoom and it’s way more stable. I don’t like Zoom generally (for many of the reasons noted in this thread), but it’s definitely reliable.

schmorptron 5y ago

Element, too!

Akronymus 5y ago
Element actually uses jitsi.
- schmorptron 5y ago
  Oh right, they're just planning to get voice and video working over matrix natively in the semi near future
  - Arathorn 5y ago
    it’s working already actually (in alpha) :)

okprod 5y ago

I think the OP meant options that are as "easy" as click on a link and join a meeting. I use BBB and Mumble but there are others I know who would never know how to set up their own instance or even what github is.

lrvick 5y ago
This is why multiple companies exist to sell you one-click hosted instances of these without lock-in.
- yorwba 5y ago
  Yeah, the press release https://datenschutz-hamburg.de/pressemitteilungen/2021/08/2021-08-16-senatskanzlei-zoom https://datenschutz-hamburg.de/pressemitteilungen/2021/08/20... mentions that (in addition to a nameless internal videoconferencing tool) Hamburg uses Dataport as a vendor, which seems to imply Jitsi Meet: https://video.openws.de/ https://video.openws.de/
FiReaNG3L 5y ago
jitsi is exactly that, been using it for the whole pandemic for meetings for my team of 10 ppl, never had an issue.
- krageon 5y ago
  Jitsi won't consistently work at scale and is (like most webrtc only applications) a terror to debug. You can basically forget about using it with someone that has issues.

taf2 5y ago

I like your line reasoning… but the problem with video conferencing isn’t really technical- IMO it’s all about the User experience (UX). Zoom by far beats the competition in this regard. It’s UI could be better but compared the mess of competitors it’s far more straightforward … just my opinion…

ratww 5y ago
I don't think Zoom "beats" anyone in UX, especially with the dark patterns. They're just popular. I've seen countless times hundreds of people unable to activate the "Computer Audio" option on company-wide meetings because it's in a secondary tab with zero-affordance. Recently they made it very hard to find the "gallery mode" icon (you have to hover a dark area). They also make it borderline impossible to open it on the browser, forcing multiple reloads or whatnot (the method it changes all the time). Honestly Jitsi, BBB and even Teams are all better IMO.
- cycomanic 5y ago
  One of my pet-peeves with the zoom UX is that it always switches to full-screen mode if someone is sharing the screen. This is particularly annoying if you are also using the participant or chat windows (because there's voting or chat messages etc.) and if you are switching between different presenters (meaning it switches again and again to full screen). Why can't it respect my decision to not have a full-screen window?!

hrjfjjfjfjd 5y ago

BBB was a mess. It's security and privacy may be great on paper (open source, self hosted). But that's the lawyer's side. In practice: BBB had server-side mute, so your muted microphone would still send audio to the server. Servers could be compromised through uploaded documents (processed by LibreOffice). The biggest problems might have been fixed by now. But self hosting half baked software isn't an alternative to most.