Is BigBlueButton free?

The software is free. BigBlueButton is open source under the LGPL v3 licence: you can download it, install it on your own server and use it for any number of meetings and users without paying licence fees. There is no "premium" version of the open-source code with locked features.

What is not free is running it. BigBlueButton needs:

• A dedicated server. The documentation for version 4.0 lists a minimum of 8 CPU cores, 16 GB of RAM, a clean Ubuntu 24.04 installation and plenty of disk space if you keep recordings.
• Bandwidth. At least 250 Mbit/s symmetrical is listed as a minimum for a production server.
• A domain name and SSL certificate, plus open firewall ports for audio and video.
• Someone to maintain it: security updates, upgrades between major versions, monitoring, and troubleshooting when audio or webcams fail for some users.

Larger organisations often need several servers and a load balancer (Scalelite), which adds cost and complexity.

So when people ask about "BigBlueButton pricing", they are usually comparing three options:

1. Self-hosting: no licence cost, but server and staff costs. 2. A free hosted plan, such as the free service for Moodle. These have tight limits on duration, participants and recordings, and the terms have changed over time. 3. A paid hosting or managed service, where a provider runs the servers and you pay for capacity and support.

None is right for everyone. A useful test is to estimate how many hours a year your team would spend maintaining your own server, then compare.