Self-Host Jitsi Meet: Video Conferencing Server 2026

TL;DR

Jitsi Meet (Apache 2.0, ~20K GitHub stars) is a fully-featured, self-hosted video conferencing platform. No account required to join calls. Works in the browser (WebRTC). Supports hundreds of participants, screensharing, chat, hand-raising, polls, and call recording (via Jibri). Zoom charges $15+/month per host license. Self-hosted Jitsi is free, unlimited meetings, unlimited participants.

Key Takeaways

• Jitsi Meet: Apache 2.0, ~20K stars — browser-based WebRTC video conferencing
• No account needed: Send a link, anyone joins from browser
• Unlimited: No meeting time limit, no participant cap (hardware-bound)
• Recording: Jibri (Jitsi Broadcasting Infrastructure) records to MP4
• JWT auth: Optional — require token to join (prevent random people from joining)
• Server requirements: 2 CPU + 4GB RAM for up to ~30 participants with decent quality

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Jitsi Meet vs Zoom vs BigBlueButton

Feature	Jitsi Meet	Zoom Pro	BigBlueButton
License	Apache 2.0	Proprietary	LGPL 3.0
Cost	Free (hosting)	$15/host/mo	Free (hosting)
Meeting time limit	None	30h	None
Participant limit	Server-bound	300 (Pro)	Server-bound
Recording	Jibri	Yes	Yes
Breakout rooms	Yes	Yes	Yes
Browser-based	Yes	Yes	Yes
Account to join	No	No	No
E2EE	Yes (small calls)	Yes (paid)	No
GitHub Stars	~20K	—	~9K

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Server Requirements

Jitsi is more CPU-intensive than most self-hosted apps:

Participants	CPU	RAM
1–10	2 cores	2GB
10–30	4 cores	4GB
30–100	8+ cores	8GB
100+	Dedicated server	16GB+

For most homelab/small team use, a 4-core VPS with 4GB RAM handles 30 participants comfortably.

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Part 1: Docker Setup (Jitsi Docker Compose)

git clone https://github.com/jitsi/docker-jitsi-meet
cd docker-jitsi-meet
cp env.example .env

Edit .env:

# Public URL (required):
PUBLIC_URL=https://meet.yourdomain.com

# Timezone:
TZ=America/Los_Angeles

# XMPP domain:
XMPP_DOMAIN=meet.yourdomain.com
XMPP_AUTH_DOMAIN=auth.meet.yourdomain.com
XMPP_INTERNAL_MCS_DOMAIN=mcs.meet.yourdomain.com
XMPP_BOSH_URL_BASE=http://xmpp.meet.yourdomain.com:5280

# JVB (video bridge) settings:
JVB_ADVERTISE_IPS=YOUR_PUBLIC_IP    # Your server's public IP
JVB_PORT=10000    # UDP port for media

# Optional — JWT authentication:
# ENABLE_AUTH=1
# AUTH_TYPE=jwt
# JWT_APP_ID=my_jitsi_app
# JWT_APP_SECRET=your-jwt-secret

# Generate secrets:
./gen-passwords.sh    # Run this to generate random passwords

docker compose up -d

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Part 2: HTTPS with Caddy

Jitsi's Docker setup includes a built-in web server on ports 80/443. With Caddy:

# In .env:
HTTP_PORT=8080
HTTPS_PORT=8443

meet.yourdomain.com {
    reverse_proxy localhost:8080
}

Or use Jitsi's built-in HTTPS (Let's Encrypt via the web container):

# In .env:
LETSENCRYPT_DOMAIN=meet.yourdomain.com
LETSENCRYPT_EMAIL=admin@yourdomain.com
ENABLE_LETSENCRYPT=1

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Part 3: Firewall Rules

Jitsi needs these ports open:

TCP 80    HTTP (redirect to HTTPS)
TCP 443   HTTPS (web and XMPP)
UDP 10000 Media (Jitsi Video Bridge)
TCP 4443  RTP fallback (if UDP blocked)

# Ubuntu UFW:
ufw allow 80/tcp
ufw allow 443/tcp
ufw allow 10000/udp
ufw allow 4443/tcp

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Part 4: Start a Meeting

Visit https://meet.yourdomain.com:

1. Enter a room name: team-standup
2. Click Start meeting
3. Share the URL: https://meet.yourdomain.com/team-standup

Anyone with the link joins from their browser — no account, no app required.

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Part 5: Meeting Controls

Feature	How to Access
Screenshare	Monitor icon in toolbar
Chat	Message icon → Chat sidebar
Raise hand	Hand icon
Tile view	Grid icon (top right)
Recording	3-dot menu → Start recording (requires Jibri)
Livestream	3-dot menu → Start livestream (requires Jibri)
Breakout rooms	3-dot menu → Breakout rooms
Polls	3-dot menu → Polls
Blur background	... → Apply background effects

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Part 6: JWT Authentication

Prevent public access — require a token to join meetings:

# .env:
ENABLE_AUTH=1
AUTH_TYPE=jwt
JWT_APP_ID=my_jitsi_server
JWT_APP_SECRET=your-very-secure-jwt-secret
JWT_ACCEPTED_ISSUERS=my_jitsi_server
JWT_ACCEPTED_AUDIENCES=my_jitsi_server

Generate tokens in your app:

import jwt
import time

payload = {
    "context": {
        "user": {
            "name": "John Smith",
            "email": "john@example.com"
        },
        "room": "*"    # Access to all rooms, or specify room name
    },
    "aud": "my_jitsi_server",
    "iss": "my_jitsi_server",
    "sub": "meet.yourdomain.com",
    "room": "*",
    "exp": int(time.time()) + 3600    # 1 hour expiry
}

token = jwt.encode(payload, "your-very-secure-jwt-secret", algorithm="HS256")
# Meeting URL: https://meet.yourdomain.com/room-name?jwt=TOKEN

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Part 7: Recording with Jibri

Jibri records meetings to MP4 using a headless Chrome browser.

Additional requirements for Jibri:

• Extra RAM: ~2GB per recording instance
• Linux kernel module snd_aloop loaded: sudo modprobe snd_aloop

# Enable in .env:
ENABLE_RECORDING=1
JIBRI_RECORDER_PASSWORD=your-recorder-password
JIBRI_XMPP_PASSWORD=your-jibri-password

# Jibri stores recordings:
JIBRI_RECORDING_DIR=/srv/recordings

# Activate Jibri service in docker-compose.yml:
docker compose --profile jibri up -d

Recordings are saved to /srv/recordings/ on the host.

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Part 8: Customize Branding

# .env:
JITSI_WATERMARK_LINK=https://yourdomain.com
DEFAULT_BACKGROUND=#1d1d1d

# Custom interface config:
# Mount custom config.js:
volumes:
  - ./config/custom-config.js:/config/custom-config.js

// custom-config.js
config.defaultLanguage = 'en';
config.startWithAudioMuted = true;    // Muted by default
config.startWithVideoMuted = true;    // Camera off by default
config.requireDisplayName = true;     // Force participants to enter a name
config.prejoinPageEnabled = true;     // Pre-join lobby
config.disableDeepLinking = true;     // No app download prompts

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Maintenance

# Update Jitsi:
cd docker-jitsi-meet
git pull
docker compose pull
docker compose up -d

# Check logs:
docker compose logs -f web jvb prosody jicofo

# Check JVB stats (Video Bridge):
curl http://localhost:8080/about/stats

Why Self-Host Jitsi Meet?

The case for self-hosting Jitsi Meet comes down to three practical factors: data ownership, cost at scale, and operational control.

Data ownership is the fundamental argument. When you use a SaaS version of any tool, your data lives on someone else's infrastructure subject to their terms of service, their security practices, and their business continuity. If the vendor raises prices, gets acquired, changes API limits, or shuts down, you're left scrambling. Self-hosting Jitsi Meet means your data and configuration stay on infrastructure you control — whether that's a VPS, a bare metal server, or a home lab.

Cost at scale matters once you move beyond individual use. Most SaaS equivalents charge per user or per data volume. A self-hosted instance on a $10-20/month VPS typically costs less than per-user SaaS pricing for teams of five or more — and the cost doesn't scale linearly with usage. One well-configured server handles dozens of users for a flat monthly fee.

Operational control is the third factor. The Docker Compose configuration above exposes every setting that commercial equivalents often hide behind enterprise plans: custom networking, environment variables, storage backends, and authentication integrations. You decide when to update, how to configure backups, and what access controls to apply.

The honest tradeoff: you're responsible for updates, backups, and availability. For teams running any production workloads, this is familiar territory. For individuals, the learning curve is real but the tooling (Docker, Caddy, automated backups) is well-documented and widely supported.

Server Requirements and Sizing

Before deploying Jitsi Meet, assess your server capacity against expected workload.

Minimum viable setup: A 1 vCPU, 1GB RAM VPS with 20GB SSD is sufficient for personal use or small teams. Most consumer VPS providers — Hetzner, DigitalOcean, Linode, Vultr — offer machines in this range for $5-10/month. Hetzner offers excellent price-to-performance for European and US regions.

Recommended production setup: 2 vCPUs with 4GB RAM and 40GB SSD handles most medium deployments without resource contention. This gives Jitsi Meet headroom for background tasks, caching, and concurrent users while leaving capacity for other services on the same host.

Storage planning: The Docker volumes in this docker-compose.yml store all persistent Jitsi Meet data. Estimate your storage growth rate early — for data-intensive tools, budget for 3-5x your initial estimate. Hetzner Cloud and Vultr both support online volume resizing without stopping your instance.

Operating system: Any modern 64-bit Linux distribution works. Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and Debian 12 are the most commonly tested configurations. Ensure Docker Engine 24.0+ and Docker Compose v2 are installed — verify with docker --version and docker compose version. Avoid Docker Desktop on production Linux servers; it adds virtualization overhead and behaves differently from Docker Engine in ways that cause subtle networking issues.

Network: Only ports 80 and 443 need to be publicly accessible when running behind a reverse proxy. Internal service ports should be bound to localhost only. A minimal UFW firewall that blocks all inbound traffic except SSH, HTTP, and HTTPS is the single most effective security measure for a self-hosted server.

Backup and Disaster Recovery

Running Jitsi Meet without a tested backup strategy is an unacceptable availability risk. Docker volumes are not automatically backed up — if you delete a volume or the host fails, data is gone with no recovery path.

What to back up: The named Docker volumes containing Jitsi Meet's data (database files, user uploads, application state), your docker-compose.yml and any customized configuration files, and .env files containing secrets.

Backup approach: For simple setups, stop the container, archive the volume contents, then restart. For production environments where stopping causes disruption, use filesystem snapshots or database dump commands (PostgreSQL pg_dump, SQLite .backup, MySQL mysqldump) that produce consistent backups without downtime.

For a complete automated backup workflow that ships snapshots to S3-compatible object storage, see the Restic + Rclone backup guide. Restic handles deduplication and encryption; Rclone handles multi-destination uploads. The same setup works for any Docker volume.

Backup cadence: Daily backups to remote storage are a reasonable baseline for actively used tools. Use a 30-day retention window minimum — long enough to recover from mistakes discovered weeks later. For critical data, extend to 90 days and use a secondary destination.

Restore testing: A backup that has never been restored is a backup you cannot trust. Once a month, restore your Jitsi Meet backup to a separate Docker Compose stack on different ports and verify the data is intact. This catches silent backup failures, script errors, and volume permission issues before they matter in a real recovery.

Security Hardening

Self-hosting means you are responsible for Jitsi Meet's security posture. The Docker Compose setup provides a functional base; production deployments need additional hardening.

Always use a reverse proxy: Never expose Jitsi Meet's internal port directly to the internet. The docker-compose.yml binds to localhost; Caddy or Nginx provides HTTPS termination. Direct HTTP access transmits credentials in plaintext. A reverse proxy also centralizes TLS management, rate limiting, and access logging.

Strong credentials: Change default passwords immediately after first login. For secrets in docker-compose environment variables, generate random values with openssl rand -base64 32 rather than reusing existing passwords.

Firewall configuration:

ufw default deny incoming
ufw allow 22/tcp
ufw allow 80/tcp
ufw allow 443/tcp
ufw enable

Internal service ports (databases, admin panels, internal APIs) should only be reachable from localhost or the Docker network, never directly from the internet.

Network isolation: Docker Compose named networks keep Jitsi Meet's services isolated from other containers on the same host. Database containers should not share networks with containers that don't need direct database access.

VPN access for sensitive services: For internal-only tools, restricting access to a VPN adds a strong second layer. Headscale is an open source Tailscale control server that puts your self-hosted stack behind a WireGuard mesh, eliminating public internet exposure for internal tools.

Update discipline: Subscribe to Jitsi Meet's GitHub releases page to receive security advisory notifications. Schedule a monthly maintenance window to pull updated images. Running outdated container images is the most common cause of self-hosted service compromises.

Troubleshooting Common Issues

Container exits immediately or won't start

Check logs first — they almost always explain the failure:

docker compose logs -f jitsi

Common causes: a missing required environment variable, a port already in use, or a volume permission error. Port conflicts appear as bind: address already in use. Find the conflicting process with ss -tlpn | grep PORT and either stop it or change Jitsi Meet's port mapping in docker-compose.yml.

Cannot reach the web interface

Work through this checklist:

1. Confirm the container is running: docker compose ps
2. Test locally on the server: curl -I http://localhost:PORT
3. If local access works but external doesn't, check your firewall: ufw status
4. If using a reverse proxy, verify it's running and the config is valid: caddy validate --config /etc/caddy/Caddyfile

Permission errors on volume mounts

Some containers run as a non-root user. If the Docker volume is owned by root, the container process cannot write to it. Find the volume's host path with docker volume inspect VOLUME_NAME, check the tool's documentation for its expected UID, and apply correct ownership:

chown -R 1000:1000 /var/lib/docker/volumes/your_volume/_data

High resource usage over time

Memory or CPU growing continuously usually indicates unconfigured log rotation, an unbound cache, or accumulated data needing pruning. Check current usage with docker stats jitsi. Add resource limits in docker-compose.yml to prevent one container from starving others. For ongoing visibility into resource trends, deploy Prometheus + Grafana or Netdata.

Data disappears after container restart

Data stored in the container's writable layer — rather than a named volume — is lost when the container is removed or recreated. This happens when the volume mount path in docker-compose.yml doesn't match where the application writes data. Verify mount paths against the tool's documentation and correct the mapping. Named volumes persist across container removal; only docker compose down -v deletes them.

Keeping Jitsi Meet Updated

Jitsi Meet follows a regular release cadence. Staying current matters for security patches and compatibility. The update process with Docker Compose is straightforward:

docker compose pull          # Download updated images
docker compose up -d         # Restart with new images
docker image prune -f        # Remove old image layers (optional)

Read the changelog before major version updates. Some releases include database migrations or breaking configuration changes. For major version bumps, test in a staging environment first — run a copy of the service on different ports with the same volume data to validate the migration before touching production.

Version pinning: For stability, pin to a specific image tag in docker-compose.yml instead of latest. Update deliberately after reviewing the changelog. This trades automatic patch delivery for predictable behavior — the right call for business-critical services.

Post-update verification: After updating, confirm Jitsi Meet is functioning correctly. Most services expose a /health endpoint that returns HTTP 200 — curl it from the server or monitor it with your uptime tool.

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See all open source video conferencing tools at OSSAlt.com/alternatives/zoom.

See open source alternatives to Jitsi on OSSAlt.