What do I need to host BigBlueButton myself?

These are the minimum requirements in the official installation guide for BigBlueButton 4.0 (released 14 October 2026):

• Operating system: a clean, dedicated Ubuntu 24.04 64-bit server. BigBlueButton should not share the server with other web applications.
• Hardware: at least 8 CPU cores and 16 GB of RAM.
• Disk: 500 GB of free space if you keep recordings; 50 GB if recordings are disabled.
• Network: at least 250 Mbit/s symmetrical bandwidth; IPv4 and IPv6.
• Ports: TCP 80 and 443 open, plus UDP 16384–32768 for audio and video.
• Domain and certificate: a hostname (for example bbb.example.com) with a valid SSL certificate. Browsers block microphone and camera on insecure connections.
• Docker: version 4.0 uses Docker for some components.

Upgrading: an in-place upgrade from BigBlueButton 3.0 (which ran on Ubuntu 22.04) to 4.0 is not supported. Plan a new server and migrate.

Skills you need: Linux administration, basic networking (firewalls, NAT, UDP), SSL, and the ability to read logs when some users cannot connect audio. Common support questions, such as audio "Error 1006" or "1010", are usually firewall or network issues.

What a minimum server gives you: roughly 200 simultaneous users in total, according to the documentation. More users means more servers and a load balancer (Scalelite).

Ongoing work: security updates, monitoring, backups of recordings, and testing new versions before your courses start.

You can try BigBlueButton on the public demo server before installing anything. If maintaining a server is not realistic for your team, a hosting provider or managed service is the alternative.