Video conferencing software hosts live meetings with video, audio, screen sharing and chat for teams and outside guests.
This guide ranks twelve products by what the first ninety days cost in set-up effort, the bill once recording and larger meetings are added, how meetings and recordings leave, and whether you can run it without a partner.
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vendor. How that works.
In short
What video conferencing software does
Video conferencing software lets people hold live audio and video meetings over the internet, with screen sharing, chat and recording, run from a vendor's cloud or your own server.
In this order: setup effort, what it really costs, how your data comes back out, whether
you can leave, and who each video conferencing tool is built for. One rule sits on top of those tests:
Places 1 to 3 go to challengers, vendors outside the best-known brands in a category, wherever the category has them; the established names follow from place 4 in their ranked order. Why those five, and why there is no
score out of ten, is on the how we work page.
Usage-based per participant minute; first minutes each month free
—
Product teams embedding video calls into their own software and apps
Offices wanting a ready-made meeting app for staff
Country is where the vendor is headquartered or contracts from, which is a
different question from where your data is hosted. Where the two tell different stories, the
entry says so.
Browser video rooms with a free plan from a Norwegian company
Ranked #1 of 12 in Best Video Conferencing Software in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingEurope
The plans are easy to price because each is one figure per host, and the permanent room link suits recurring client calls.
The catch is direction: the vendor describes itself as having focused all engineering on its developer product since 2023, and the Meetings tiers cap at 200 attendees with 24 active videos. Treat it as a stable small-meeting tool, not a platform that will grow with you.
What stands out
Browser rooms
Per-host plans
Free plan
Where it costs you
The free plan stops meetings at 30 minutes and four attendees
Business needs at least three hosts, which rules out a two-person firm
Right for
Small teams that want a permanent room link and no software to install
Wrong for
Anyone running large webinars or company-wide all-hands calls
NorwayFree plan; paid plans per host per month, published
Encrypted video conferencing from a French company, cloud or on-premises
Ranked #2 of 12 in Best Video Conferencing Software in 2026.
Self-hostablePricing on requestEurope
Tixeo publishes from a Montpellier address and sells three offers under one product line, so moving from the shared cloud to your own servers should not mean changing tools.
The cost is commercial: no figures on the site, a ten-organiser entry point and add-ons for recording and dial-in. Ask for the complete add-on list before comparing it with a card-priced rival.
What stands out
End-to-end encrypted
On-premises option
Trial
Where it costs you
Prices are not shown on the offers page
The cloud plan starts at ten organisers
Recording, summaries, translation and phone calls are optional extras
Right for
Organisations that must keep meetings, chat and files encrypted end to end
Wrong for
Freelancers or very small teams wanting to buy by card
FranceQuoted per organisation; 30-day trial; cloud, private cloud or on-premises
Open source meetings you can use hosted or run yourself
Ranked #3 of 12 in Best Video Conferencing Software in 2026.
Free tierOpen sourceSelf-hostablePublished pricingNorth America
This is the cheapest route to exit: the software is Apache 2.0, the hosted service asks for no account and the handbook documents a package install on Debian and Ubuntu.
The trade is that a company, 8x8, owns the trademark and the roadmap, and a self-hosted deployment is yours to scale and patch. Plan for an administrator, not a licence fee, as the main cost of self-hosting.
What stands out
Open source
Self-host
No account needed
Where it costs you
Running your own server puts scaling and upgrades on your own staff
Trademark and roadmap belong to 8x8, not to the community
Right for
Technical teams that want video meetings running on their own servers
Wrong for
Teams without anyone able to maintain a server
United StatesFree hosted service; open source Apache 2.0; self-host on your own server
Open source web conferencing designed around online classrooms
Ranked #4 of 12 in Best Video Conferencing Software in 2026.
Open sourceSelf-hostablePublished pricingNorth America
BigBlueButton began at Carleton University in Ottawa and is licensed under the LGPL, so a university or training firm can host classes without a per-seat fee. The documented installation assumes a clean, dedicated Ubuntu server, which is real operating work.
Its own site positions it as a virtual classroom rather than a general conferencing tool, so a company buying it for client calls will be fitting a classroom product to an office job.
What stands out
Open source
Virtual classroom
Self-host
Where it costs you
Needs a dedicated server with 16 GB of memory and 8 CPU cores
Built for teaching, so business meeting features are secondary
Right for
Schools and training providers running their own virtual classrooms on their servers
Wrong for
Sales teams wanting quick, polished client calls today
CanadaOpen source, free of licence fees; run on your own server
Secure video platform for governments, defence and regulated sectors
Ranked #5 of 12 in Best Video Conferencing Software in 2026.
Pricing on requestEurope
Pexip's own pages stress classified and high-security work: role and attribute-based access, no third-party processing and an air-gapped AI option.
A second product, Connect, bridges room systems to other vendors' meetings, which helps buyers who already run Teams or Zoom. The cost is access: nothing on the pages gives a price, and procurement goes through a partner, so the first ninety days are mostly contract work.
What stands out
Data control
Resellers
Interoperability
Where it costs you
No prices on the site
Buying runs through resellers or cloud marketplaces
More controls than an ordinary office needs
Right for
Government and defence buyers who need strict control over where meeting data lives
Wrong for
Small teams wanting a meeting tool paid by card
NorwayQuoted per organisation; sold through resellers and cloud marketplaces
Meetings and webinars from a suite vendor, with a free plan
Ranked #6 of 12 in Best Video Conferencing Software in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingAsia-Pacific
Meetings and webinars share one subscription, which is useful if a team runs both, and the participant ladder makes the cost easy to predict.
The ladder is also the limit: the highest tier on the pricing page is 250 participants. Zoho Meeting sits beside Zoho CRM and Zoho Workplace, so integration with those is the argument, not the video itself.
What stands out
Free plan
Webinars included
Tiered by participants
Where it costs you
Free plan ends meetings at 60 minutes
Breakout rooms and API access need the Professional tier
Participant caps top out at 250
Right for
Small businesses that already use other Zoho applications for sales or office work
Wrong for
Buyers needing meetings of more than 250 participants
IndiaFree plan; paid tiers by participant count, billed monthly or annually; 14-day trial
Meeting app sold inside a larger workplace bundle with chat and phone
Ranked #7 of 12 in Best Video Conferencing Software in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingNorth America
Zoom was founded around video conferencing in 2011 and lists San Jose as its headquarters, but the product is now a suite called Workplace with chat, phone, whiteboards and AI features.
That helps if you want one vendor and costs you if you only want meetings, because separate add-ons such as webinars and Zoom Phone carry their own pricing. Check the plan seat limits before choosing Pro for a growing team.
What stands out
Free plan
Per-user plans
Bundled suite
Where it costs you
Webinars, phone and rooms are separate products
Pro is limited to nine users, Business to 250
Right for
Companies whose clients and partners already join Zoom meetings regularly
Wrong for
Buyers wanting one flat price for everything they use
United StatesFree Basic plan; Pro and Business billed per user per month
Peer-to-peer calls and conferences on free software, no server
Ranked #8 of 12 in Best Video Conferencing Software in 2026.
Free tierOpen sourcePublished pricingElsewhere
The design is the point: Jami is peer-to-peer, so there is no vendor server to hold meeting data and no subscription to cancel.
The same design is the weakness for organisations, since nothing on the site describes user management, recording policy or a service level. It is funded by donations through Savoir-faire Linux, which is an unusual dependency for a business tool.
What stands out
Open source
Peer-to-peer
No account data
Where it costs you
The site offers no business plan or support contract
No administrator console is described on the site
Right for
Privacy-minded groups wanting conferencing without any central server or vendor
Wrong for
Companies needing admin controls, recording policy and support
Not stated by the vendorFree, open source (GPLv3 or later), donation funded
Meetings built into Google Workspace, with a no-cost tier
Ranked #9 of 12 in Best Video Conferencing Software in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingNorth America
The no-cost version covers one-hour group calls, and paid Workspace tiers raise the size to 150, 500 and 1000 participants.
The price is per user for the whole suite, so a firm that uses only Meet pays for mail and storage it may not want. If your staff already live in Gmail and Calendar, adding Meet costs nothing extra, which is its strongest argument.
What stands out
Free tier
Workspace bundle
Per-user plans
Where it costs you
Premium features come only with Google One or Workspace plans
Meetings above 100 participants and 60 minutes need a paid tier
Right for
Organisations already running mail, calendar and documents on Google Workspace
Wrong for
Buyers wanting a standalone meeting tool without a suite
United StatesFree for Google accounts; paid tiers bundled into Workspace per user per month
Cisco-published meetings app with a free plan and enterprise tier
Ranked #10 of 12 in Best Video Conferencing Software in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingElsewhere
Free Webex gives 40-minute meetings for up to 100 attendees, and anyone can join without a licence. Hosting is the licensed part, one licence per concurrent meeting, so busy teams count licences by peak overlap.
Enterprise raises attendees to 1,000 and adds FedRAMP security. The publisher meta tag names Cisco, but the pricing pages do not state a country of establishment.
What stands out
Free plan
Host licences
Enterprise tier
Where it costs you
Free meetings stop at 40 minutes
Each concurrent meeting needs another host licence
Enterprise pricing is quoted by sales
Right for
Large organisations wanting FedRAMP security options and a vendor with a large partner base
Wrong for
Small teams wanting simple flat per-user pricing for meetings
Not stated by the vendorFree plan; paid plans per host licence; enterprise quoted by sales
Meetings, rooms and webinars sold by a phone and contact-centre vendor
Ranked #11 of 12 in Best Video Conferencing Software in 2026.
Pricing on requestNorth America
The product's strength is bundling: video, phone, team messaging and events sit under one contract and one admin. The weakness is the same bundling, because the pricing page is oriented around a sales conversation and the video plans are not itemised for a quick comparison.
RingCentral, Inc. is a Delaware corporation with its primary office in Belmont, California, according to its terms.
What stands out
Sold with phone system
Annual discount
AI summaries
Where it costs you
Plan figures were not visible on the pricing page
Mostly sold alongside the phone system
Right for
Companies that already use RingCentral for phone and team messaging
Wrong for
Anyone shopping for a stand-alone meetings tool alone
United StatesSold by plan with annual discount; contact sales for a configuration
Video call infrastructure for developers, billed by participant minute
Ranked #12 of 12 in Best Video Conferencing Software in 2026.
Published pricingElsewhere
Usage pricing means a quiet month costs little, and the rates on the page are itemised: video per participant minute, recording per recorded minute, phone numbers per month.
That also makes forecasts harder than a seat fee, since a busy webinar month changes the invoice. Daily's current marketing leans toward voice AI agents, so check that the video SDK still gets the attention you need.
What stands out
Developer API
Usage-based
Free minutes
Where it costs you
Needs developer work to produce a usable product
Recording, streaming and dial-in are billed separately
Right for
Product teams embedding video calls into their own software and apps
Wrong for
Offices wanting a ready-made meeting app for staff
Not stated by the vendorUsage-based per participant minute; first minutes each month free
Video conferencing software lets people hold live audio and video meetings over the internet, with screen sharing, chat and recording, run from a vendor's cloud or your own server. The differences that matter are rarely in the feature list, so this is
the order we would work through them.
01
Decide whether you need a published price
9 of the 12 tools here publish what they cost; the other 3 quote per organisation. The ones you can compare without a sales call: Whereby, Jitsi Meet, BigBlueButton, Zoho Meeting, Zoom Workplace, Jami, Google Meet, Webex, Daily.
02
Decide how much the jurisdiction matters
These 12 vendors are established in 6 countries across 4 regions (North America 5, Europe 3, Elsewhere 3, Asia-Pacific 1). That decides whose disclosure law applies to what the vendor holds, wherever the servers are.
03
Consider whether you want the source
3 of these are open source: Jitsi Meet, BigBlueButton, Jami. Hosting one yourself trades a subscription for maintenance.
Video conferencing software prices the seat, the room or the minute
Whereby charges per host and caps rooms and attendees, Google Meet comes inside a Workspace seat, Zoom Workplace sells Pro and Business per user per month, and Webex asks for a host licence for every concurrent meeting. Daily charges per participant minute, which is cheap in a quiet month and hard to forecast in a busy one.
Tixeo and Pexip give no figures at all. Comparing a seat price with a per-minute rate only works if you first count how many meetings run at once, how many people host, and how many guests join, because the three meters respond to those numbers differently, and a vendor demo will rarely show you the busiest week of your quarter.
Count concurrent meetings, not users, before pricing Webex.
Ask whether Google Meet or Zoom Workplace bundles are cheaper than the stand-alone tool you want.
Convert a per-minute rate into a monthly figure using last quarter's real call hours.
Free plans end meetings early, and the limit differs by vendor
Whereby Free stops at 30 minutes and four attendees, Webex Free at 40 minutes and 100 attendees, Zoho Meeting at 60 minutes and 100 participants, and Google Meet at 60 minutes for up to 100 participants. A free plan is a fair trial for a team of two but a poor way to run a weekly client call, because a meeting that cuts off at an awkward point costs more than a licence.
Jitsi Meet and Jami are free software with no paid plan to compare, so the limits come from whoever runs the server. Zoom Workplace sells a free Basic plan too, and its sheet should be read for the same limits before any team is rolled onto it.
Test your longest normal meeting, not a five-minute call.
Check whether guests need an account to join.
Confirm the attendee cap on the plan you would actually buy.
Where the meeting runs matters more for some buyers than for others
Jitsi Meet and BigBlueButton can run on your own Ubuntu or Debian server, Tixeo offers the same software on your own infrastructure, and Pexip describes self-contained deployments with no external access. That helps regulated buyers and costs administrator time.
Tixeo and Pexip also say their products are certified or built for high-security use, and BigBlueButton's documentation asks for a dedicated server with 16 GB of memory and 8 cores. Hosted tools such as Zoom Workplace or Google Meet need none of this, but they leave location and upgrade timing to the vendor. Match the choice to who in your organisation is willing to own the server, rather than to the licence line alone.
Ask who patches and scales the server before choosing a self-hosted tool.
Read the certification claims against the plan you would buy.
Decide whether encryption, location or administrator control is the real requirement.
Classroom, API and phone-system products are not the same job
BigBlueButton is built for online teaching, Daily and Whereby Embedded are for developers who add calls to software, and RingCentral Video is mostly bought with a phone system. Zoho Meeting suits Zoho customers. Putting these in one ranking with Zoom Workplace or Webex risks choosing a tool whose strength lies elsewhere. Each reader should start from the job.
A school should read BigBlueButton's classroom features, a software team should read Daily's per-minute rates, and an office should start from the meeting tools with flat per-user plans. Webex and Google Meet belong in that last group, while Jami belongs with individuals and small groups who want no vendor at all, accepting that nobody sells them support.
Write down the job first: classroom, client calls, product feature or phone bundle.
Ask whether the vendor still invests in the meetings product.
Avoid paying for a suite when only video is needed.
What goes wrong most often when buying video conferencing software
Judging a free plan on a five-minute test call and discovering the 30 or 40-minute cut-off in the first client meeting.
Counting named users for Webex and forgetting that each concurrent meeting needs another host licence.
Choosing Jitsi Meet or BigBlueButton for the missing licence fee and leaving out the server and the person who patches it.
Buying a developer SDK such as Daily, or a classroom tool such as BigBlueButton, and expecting a ready-made office meeting app.
07
Frequently asked questions
8 answers
What is the best video conferencing software in 2026?
Whereby leads our ranking of 12. Rooms open in the browser without a download. The Free plan gives one room, four attendees and 30-minute meetings; Pro raises that to 100 attendees and Business to 200, with a three-host minimum and a 14-day trial.
The company says its product and engineering work has gone into Whereby Embedded since 2023, so expect the Meetings product to change slowly and expect fewer new features than the API gets.
Which video conferencing tools publish their pricing?
9 of the 12, with the pricing model each one publishes:
Whereby: Free plan; paid plans per host per month, published.
Jitsi Meet: Free hosted service; open source Apache 2.0; self-host on your own server.
BigBlueButton: Open source, free of licence fees; run on your own server.
Zoho Meeting: Free plan; paid tiers by participant count, billed monthly or annually; 14-day trial.
Zoom Workplace: Free Basic plan; Pro and Business billed per user per month.
Jami: Free, open source (GPLv3 or later), donation funded.
Google Meet: Free for Google accounts; paid tiers bundled into Workspace per user per month.
Webex: Free plan; paid plans per host licence; enterprise quoted by sales.
Daily: Usage-based per participant minute; first minutes each month free.
The other 3 quote per organisation.
Is there a free video conferencing tool?
Whereby, Jitsi Meet, Zoho Meeting, Zoom Workplace, Jami, Google Meet, Webex offer a free tier or a free self-hosted edition.
Where are these video conferencing software vendors established?
In 6 countries across 4 regions: North America 5, Europe 3, Elsewhere 3, Asia-Pacific 1.
Whereby: Norway.
Tixeo: France.
Jitsi Meet: United States.
BigBlueButton: Canada.
Pexip: Norway.
Zoho Meeting: India.
Zoom Workplace: United States.
Jami: Not stated by the vendor.
Google Meet: United States.
Webex: Not stated by the vendor.
RingCentral Video: United States.
Daily: Not stated by the vendor.
Which video conferencing tools are open source?
Jitsi Meet, BigBlueButton, Jami.
Which video conferencing tools can you host yourself?
Tixeo, Jitsi Meet, BigBlueButton. The other 9 are hosted by the vendor only.
What should you use instead of Whereby?
Tixeo and Jitsi Meet are the next two on this page. Tixeo is for Organisations that must keep meetings, chat and files encrypted end to end; Jitsi Meet is for Technical teams that want video meetings running on their own servers.
Who should not buy Whereby?
Anyone running large webinars or company-wide all-hands calls. The free plan stops meetings at 30 minutes and four attendees.
If your video conferencing software product belongs among these 12, tell us what it does and who it is for. Inclusion is an editorial call; what a listing is and is not is set out under software advice.
