Most people go looking for a Zoom alternative for one of three reasons: the free plan's 40-minute cap keeps cutting meetings off mid-sentence, the per-host pricing is starting to add up now that half the company schedules its own calls, or someone in legal has asked exactly where the meeting recordings are stored and "Zoom's servers" isn't a great answer. Jitsi Meet solves all three, but not for free in the way people assume. Here's what it actually gets you, and where Meetrix fits in if you'd rather not run the server yourself.
Is Jitsi Meet Actually Free?
The software, yes. Jitsi Meet is open-source under the Apache 2.0 license, so there's no subscription, no per-seat charge, and no feature locked behind a paywall. You can use the public server at meet.jit.si right now, for nothing, no account required to host or join.
What isn't free is running your own instance, which is the whole point if you want the privacy and control that make people look at Jitsi in the first place. Self-hosting means paying for a server: budget roughly $60-100/month for a small team on AWS. That's still far below what a team of any real size pays Zoom per host per month, but it's not "free," and any article that tells you otherwise is skipping the part that actually matters.
Jitsi Meet vs Zoom, Side by Side
| Feature | Jitsi Meet | Zoom |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free software; self-hosting runs $60-100+/mo depending on scale | Free (Basic) up to roughly $18-19/host/mo (Business) |
| Free plan meeting cap | None (limited only by your own server) | 40 minutes for 3+ participants |
| Max participants | 200-250 comfortably per room in our own load tests | 100 (Basic/Pro), 300 (Business) |
| Self-hosting | Yes, full control over the server and the data | No, Zoom-hosted only |
| Account to join | Never required | Not required by default, unless the host restricts it |
| Recording | Via Jibri, needs a separate server | Included from Pro up |
| License | Open source (Apache 2.0) | Proprietary |
Zoom's figures above are current on its public pricing page as of July 2026. It's worth re-checking before you commit to a plan since these change more often than people expect.
What Jitsi Meet Gets Right
Jitsi runs entirely in the browser, no download required, and joining is just clicking a link. Video and screen sharing hold up well for normal meeting sizes, and calls run over DTLS-SRTP encryption by default, with end-to-end encryption available for smaller meetings. None of that is unique among video tools anymore. What is unique is what you can do with it once you control the server:
- No per-seat cost, ever. Add 200 people to your organization and the license doesn't change.
- Full control over where the data sits. Recordings, transcripts, and metadata stay on your infrastructure, not a vendor's.
- Real customization. Strip the interface down, add your own branding, or bolt on integrations Zoom would never build for you.
- Recording and streaming via Jibri, straight to YouTube or any RTMP destination, even on a self-hosted setup.
What it doesn't get right
Someone has to run it. Prosody, Jicofo, the video bridge, a TURN server for people behind strict NATs, SSL renewal, security patching, none of that is hard individually, but it's real ongoing work that Zoom simply handles for you. The native mobile apps are also noticeably less polished than Zoom's. And the free public meet.jit.si server is shared infrastructure with no SLA, fine for a casual call, not something I'd put a client-facing meeting on.
What Meetrix Adds to a Self-Hosted Jitsi Setup
Meetrix deploys and runs Jitsi Meet for teams that want the self-hosting benefits without spending the first week fighting Jicofo configs. Rather than installing Jitsi by hand, you launch a pre-configured AMI from AWS Marketplace, sized to your actual team, 50, 100, or 500 concurrent users, with or without recording built in.
A 50-user setup runs on a c5.large instance (2 vCPU, 4GB RAM), roughly $62/month in EC2 cost, plus Meetrix's software fee on top (typically $0.029-0.048/hour, with 365-day contracts cutting that by 14-41%). All in, that lands around $97/month for a small team, no recording. Turn on recording or scale to 500 concurrent users and you're closer to $580/month, still a fraction of what the equivalent headcount would cost on Zoom's per-host pricing. We break down every line item, instance sizing, bandwidth, S3 storage for recordings, in our Jitsi self-hosting cost guide.
Beyond the hosting, Meetrix tunes the audio and video pipeline (noise reduction, echo cancellation, adaptive bitrate for shaky connections) so the out-of-the-box experience holds up under real network conditions, not just a demo on office wifi.
Which Setup Actually Fits You
If you're a small team having the occasional call, just pay for Zoom and move on, the setup cost of running your own server isn't worth it yet. Jitsi starts winning once you've got enough regular users that per-host pricing outpaces a flat server bill, usually somewhere past 30-40 people, or once data residency stops being optional. In that case, decide between installing Jitsi yourself (free software, all the maintenance) or launching Meetrix's AMI (a small hourly fee, none of the setup week). Our AWS deployment guide walks through the DIY path if you want to compare the two directly.
Jitsi Related FAQs
Is Jitsi Meet really free to use?
The software is, under the Apache 2.0 license, no subscription, no per-seat fee, no feature paywall. The free public server at meet.jit.si costs nothing to use. If you self-host it instead, you pay for the server itself, that's typically $60-100/month for a small team on AWS, not a license fee.
How is Jitsi Meet different from Zoom?
Zoom is a hosted, proprietary service you pay for by the host, per month. Jitsi Meet is open-source software you can run on the free public server or on your own infrastructure, with no per-seat cost either way. The tradeoff is that self-hosting Jitsi means you're responsible for the server.
Does Jitsi Meet require an account to join a meeting?
No. Anyone with the meeting link can join directly from a browser, no account, no app install. Zoom and Google Meet both allow guest joining too, but Jitsi never requires it under any configuration.
What does Meetrix actually add to Jitsi Meet?
Meetrix packages Jitsi Meet as a ready-to-launch AMI on AWS Marketplace, tuned for real call quality (echo cancellation, adaptive bitrate under bad networks) and sized correctly for your team, so you skip the week of configuring Prosody, Jicofo, and a TURN server by hand.
Can Jitsi Meet be recorded or streamed like Zoom?
Yes, through Jibri, Jitsi's recording component. It needs its own server (at least 8GB RAM for 720p) separate from the main meeting server, and it can push straight to YouTube or any RTMP endpoint.
Is self-hosted Jitsi Meet secure enough for business calls?
It runs the same DTLS-SRTP encryption as Zoom and Google Meet, and supports end-to-end encryption for smaller calls. The difference is that patching, TLS certificates, and access control are your responsibility on a self-hosted instance, not a vendor's.
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Launch Jitsi Meet Without the Setup Week
Meetrix's pre-configured Jitsi Meet AMIs cover 50 to 500 concurrent users, with or without recording, tuned for real call quality and ready to launch straight from AWS Marketplace.
View Jitsi Meet AMIs on AWS Marketplace