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I see 4 competitors in this space (consumer video-conferencing SaaS): - Zoom - Google Meet - MS Teams - Jitsi (free) I try and avoid Google products where

I see 4 competitors in this space (consumer video-conferencing SaaS): - Zoom - Google Meet - MS Teams - Jitsi (free) I try and avoid Google products where I can but it seems like the least worst option here (I use Jitsi when I can but it's limited). Is there a 5th option out there? I have tried Discord, it's reasonable, but the UX is kinda crazy for anyone not used to it - very hard to convince non-gamers to use it.

aembleton 3y ago
How many are usually on your calls? Signal or WhatsApp might be good enough for you.
Zambyte 3y ago
In what way do you find Jitsi limited? Perhaps BigBlueButton would be another reasonable option?
- lucideer 3y ago
  Jitsi's free service disables video to "save bandwidth" if you have any reasonable amount of participants (3+ in my experience), and doesn't allow you to re-enable it. Their paid service allows you to tweak this but it starts at $100/mo. Have never tried BBB & I'm starting to see a lot of folk recommending it here now as I read through the comments... is it available as a service or is it purely a self-host option (website appears to imply the latter at first but I haven't dug into it yet).
  - gjsman-1000 3y ago
    Self-host, but you can get hosting through its developer, Blindside Networks (terrible name for a company). https://blindsidenetworks.com https://blindsidenetworks.com
    - lucideer 3y ago
      Ah. In that case, not really the "space" I'm referring to. Was really asking if there's any other non-self-hosted competitors to these services out there?
  - tornato7 3y ago
    The free version of Jitsi does, yes. I'm self-hosting my own Jitsi instance and was able to configure the quality settings way beyond anything you can get from Zoom or Google Meet. I can have ten people with 30Mbps 4K video streams on the call at once. The video is responsive, lifelike, and beautiful like you're watching a pre-recorded YouTube video.
    - sickill 3y ago
      Any pointers for self-hosting, specifically on the configuration side?
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  Jitsi is limited in that any organization big enough to have an IT security policy almost certainly prohibits standing up your own online meeting service for business use. You'll have to use the company-approved service, which is most likely Zoom or maybe Teams or Google. I haven't looked but I'd bet that Microsoft's and Google's terms of use are broadly similar to Zoom's for similar services.
  - Hizonner 3y ago
    If they have a competent IT security policy, it will also forbid you to use Zoom, assuming even half the things people are saying in Zoom's terms are actually in there. Competence is always in short supplly, though.
  - sickill 3y ago
    Let’s try to convince our IT admins to approve Jitsi then. If we don’t try then we’ll be destined to Zoom/Teams/Meet.
    - SoftTalker 3y ago
      It's not the IT admins, it's the CISO or equivalent. At their level they will be concerned with approving anything that's not widely popular and may be perceived as an "unsafe" choice. An extension of the age-old "nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM" line of thinking.
      - lucideer 3y ago
        I don't know which companies/CISOs you've worked with but in my experience it's the opposite: CISOs tend to be wary of transferring corp data to 3rd-parties, for both legal/compliance and security reasons. It's generally engineering/IT management that tend to be more wary of self-hosting maintenance.
reschlukas10 3y ago
Webex is pretty good
gjsman-1000 3y ago
There's always BigBlueButton and... Adobe Connect (shudders).
knutzui 3y ago
There's also slack huddles, however I suppose this really only works for internal company calls. Apart from that I've found that to be the best option, especially when using slack already.
higeorge13 3y ago
We also use whereby at work, but we are a small company.

aembleton 3y ago

How many are usually on your calls? Signal or WhatsApp might be good enough for you.

Zambyte 3y ago

In what way do you find Jitsi limited? Perhaps BigBlueButton would be another reasonable option?

lucideer 3y ago
Jitsi's free service disables video to "save bandwidth" if you have any reasonable amount of participants (3+ in my experience), and doesn't allow you to re-enable it. Their paid service allows you to tweak this but it starts at $100/mo. Have never tried BBB & I'm starting to see a lot of folk recommending it here now as I read through the comments... is it available as a service or is it purely a self-host option (website appears to imply the latter at first but I haven't dug into it yet).
- gjsman-1000 3y ago
  Self-host, but you can get hosting through its developer, Blindside Networks (terrible name for a company). https://blindsidenetworks.com https://blindsidenetworks.com
  - lucideer 3y ago
    Ah. In that case, not really the "space" I'm referring to. Was really asking if there's any other non-self-hosted competitors to these services out there?
- tornato7 3y ago
  The free version of Jitsi does, yes. I'm self-hosting my own Jitsi instance and was able to configure the quality settings way beyond anything you can get from Zoom or Google Meet. I can have ten people with 30Mbps 4K video streams on the call at once. The video is responsive, lifelike, and beautiful like you're watching a pre-recorded YouTube video.
  - sickill 3y ago
    Any pointers for self-hosting, specifically on the configuration side?
SoftTalker 3y ago
Jitsi is limited in that any organization big enough to have an IT security policy almost certainly prohibits standing up your own online meeting service for business use. You'll have to use the company-approved service, which is most likely Zoom or maybe Teams or Google. I haven't looked but I'd bet that Microsoft's and Google's terms of use are broadly similar to Zoom's for similar services.
- Hizonner 3y ago
  If they have a competent IT security policy, it will also forbid you to use Zoom, assuming even half the things people are saying in Zoom's terms are actually in there. Competence is always in short supplly, though.
- sickill 3y ago
  Let’s try to convince our IT admins to approve Jitsi then. If we don’t try then we’ll be destined to Zoom/Teams/Meet.
  - SoftTalker 3y ago
    It's not the IT admins, it's the CISO or equivalent. At their level they will be concerned with approving anything that's not widely popular and may be perceived as an "unsafe" choice. An extension of the age-old "nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM" line of thinking.
    - lucideer 3y ago
      I don't know which companies/CISOs you've worked with but in my experience it's the opposite: CISOs tend to be wary of transferring corp data to 3rd-parties, for both legal/compliance and security reasons. It's generally engineering/IT management that tend to be more wary of self-hosting maintenance.

reschlukas10 3y ago

Webex is pretty good

gjsman-1000 3y ago

There's always BigBlueButton and... Adobe Connect (shudders).

knutzui 3y ago

There's also slack huddles, however I suppose this really only works for internal company calls. Apart from that I've found that to be the best option, especially when using slack already.

higeorge13 3y ago

We also use whereby at work, but we are a small company.