The best alternative to Jitsi that you need to know about (free & paid)

Jitsi is a video conferencing platform where users can interact with them with audio and video with open-source and low-cost options.

But do you really think it is the virtual classroom solution that you were looking for ?

Probably no. And If you are wondering why, let’s get started.

Compared to the general video conferencing solutions such as Zoom, Cisco Webex and Google Meet; Jitsi includes the essentials needed for a basic video call. But if you want your virtual classroom sessions to be more that essentials, you will need more than Jitsi.

With this article, we will try to explain why Jitsi may require extra effort and resources in virtual classrooms and how to overcome those obstacles.

Let’s start with Jitsi.

What is Jitsi?

Jitsi is a free and open-source video conferencing platform that allows users to share camera, audio, and screen on mobile and desktop devices. It's one of the biggest open-source video conferencing solutions and offers a high level of customization with its architecture.

Jitsi can be installed on on-premise servers as software and served from your own servers, or you can continue with the online version which is maintained by 8x8 software. At first glance, Jitsi looks very easy to use, but it comes with a lot of challenges for virtual classrooms, workshops, and online training. So let's explain each of them:

1. It requires a developer to run: As easy as it looks, the out-of-package Jitsi only includes the essentials and requires developer time to customize, tweak and add the necessary plugins that fits to your needs. This can further increase the required deployment time and put an unnecessary burden on your developers.

2. Its not designed for virtual classrooms: Jitsi is essentially a video conferencing software, which lacks the fundamentals that are required to have a good virtual classroom. Jitsi currently lacks roster management, dedicated dashboard, drill-down student reporting, and session content management. This all comes at a cost to instructor as if one proceeds with Jitsi; they probably will have to use separate systems to get each of them.

3. Requires maintenance: Being on your servers means that you constantly have to check if Jitsi is running correctly, or enough resources has been made available for it.

4. Quality degrades if you want to have higher participants: While Jitsi is OK for small groups, the system integrity starts to shake down if you want to have higher groups or webinars with it. This further limits the usability of Jitsi.

Jitsi Features

Jitsi is pretty basic when it comes to features. We even can summarize them in a couple of bullet points:

•  Camera and Audio Sharing
• Screen Sharing
• Chat Messages
• 3rd Party Integrations (Requires Developer Time)

Jitsi Pricing

Jitsi is completely free if you decide to use it with your own servers. If you want to go with an software provider and want to use Jitsi as a Service, the pricing is based on monthly active users and starts from $100.

Jitsi may be an expensive option for you if you want to get the most performance out of your money because it lacks the necessary features like built-in dashboard or user management.

Might be some of the cons that Jitsi comes with. This article focuses on what Alternatives you can go with instead of using Jitsi for having the best virtual classroom experience both for instructor and the students!

There is a good alternative for Jitsi if you want more features and better pricing. Let's look at our alternative:

What is Groups?

Groups is a virtual classroom software that is specifically designed for learning & teaching unlike other standard video conferencing solutions like Jitsi.

Groups uses a number of training-focused features to improve session engagement, this allows Groups to be precise and prepared.

If you think about "Why would I pay for Groups when I can use Jitsi for free?" The answer is simple. Groups comes with every feature you need out of the package. You don't spend any time with development and upkeep.

Groups Features

Groups offers many more features than Jitsi. If we need to briefly summarize Groups' features:

• Course Flow: Flow allows you to build your virtual classroom material ahead of time in a PowerPoint slides like manner! Just upload your files, add your questions and prepare your Breakout Rooms before the session EVEN begins! When your classroom starts, just hit next for changing the material, never have to deal with wasting time with preparatory tasks during your virtual classroom.

   

•  Breakout Rooms: Groups allows you to divide your participants into groups. You can allow groups to work on specific tasks under your moderation. Different from the competition, you can even assign groups the participants even before the session starts.

   

• Video Conferencing: Groups allows you to share your camera and audio with HD quality. Participants can share up to 50 cameras and you can easily manage the participant permissions like who is allowed to share camera and who is not. This allows you to create sessions without any hiccups!

   

• Hybrid Mode: You can use two different cameras from one computer, at the same time. During your virtual classroom Groups allows you to share two cameras at once from a single device. This allows you to clearly show off what you are doing on the whiteboard, or the canvas!

   

• Built-in Questions: You can use open-ended or choice based questions with Groups.

   

• Drill-down Reporting: Every session generates six ( S I X ) different reports! You can analyze your virtual classrooms based on participant attendance, question responses or simply who shared their cameras the longest!

   

•  Advanced Dashboard: Groups comes with everything you need. With one subscription, you also get access to our dashboard where you can manage/add users, create and plan sessions or generate reports.

   

•  Easy Integrations: Groups has LTI and API integrations ready-to-deploy at your disposal. This allows Groups to seamlessly integrate with your current LMS or internal platforms.

   

•  White-label Ready: Groups can be customized to fit your brand. What's different from Jitsi in Groups is ours is much more easier and does not require any kind of coding whatsoever!