Does Moodle have video conferencing built in?

Partly. Moodle includes a BigBlueButton activity in its standard installation, but it does not include the video server that actually runs the live sessions. Think of the activity as the door, and the BigBlueButton server as the room behind it.

What the Moodle activity does:

• Lets a teacher add a live session to a course, with a start time that appears in the calendar and a time after which students can no longer join.
• Optional "wait for moderator", roles, a welcome message and grading in the gradebook.
• Shows recordings inside the course, if recording is allowed.
• Optional guest access for people without a Moodle account (an experimental setting the administrator enables).

What you still need: a BigBlueButton server, configured by the site administrator with a server URL and shared secret. Since Moodle 5.3 (released 5 October 2026), new sites have the activity enabled by default, but it appears greyed out until the administrator registers and enters these credentials. Your options are:

1. The free service for Moodle, which has strict limits on duration, participants and recordings (see the separate question). 2. Your own BigBlueButton server. 3. A hosting provider.

Other tools can be added with plugins or LTI: plugNmeet, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet and others. These are not part of standard Moodle; check that each plugin supports your Moodle version.

Moodle itself handles the course side: enrolment, calendar, activity completion and grades. The live audio and video always come from a separate system.