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Jitsi Meet vs Big Blue Button

Coming soon - Jitsi Meet, XR UK's new Zoom alternative

We now have two different Zoom alternatives which are free for XR UK rebels:

We have started working on Jitsi Meet mainly because of problems with subtitles (closed captions) in Big Blue Button. It solves that problem, but it's still a work in progress. Testing is welcome, but please keep us up to date!

Advantages of Jitsi Meet over Big Blue Button:
  • Subtitles work, even if somebody is on a mobile phone
  • Subtitles are more secure than on Big Blue Button
  • Subtitles are easier to set up than on Big Blue Button
  • Screen sharing works on mobile if you use the app
  • Does not require emailing XR Global to get an account, you can use your hub account
Disadvantages:
  • You need a hub account to start a meeting in Jitsi Meet
  • Big Blue Button has better background blur / background replacement
  • XR's Jitsi Meet is still a work in progress, we're still working on improving it: Big Blue Button may be more stable
  • We need to do more work to document Jitsi Meet on the Rebel Toolkit
  • 2 minute delay before subtitles start working (contact us if you're using it regularly, see below)
  • No built in meeting schedule, just click on jitsi.extinctionrebellion.uk to create a new meeting and share the meeting link, add it to your calendar etc
  • A few features missing e.g. whiteboarding; we may add some of these later

In general, Jitsi Meet provides both security and accessibility at the same time. So we hope most circles will eventually move their regular meetings to it. However Jitsi Meet misses a few features (for now), doesn't currently support scheduling, and above all, you need a hub account to start a meeting. This may change, see below.

jitsi.extinctionrebellion.uk is hosted by XR UK. There is also a separate global Jitsi Meet which does not have working subtitles.

Help us

We know who is using Jitsi Meet, because of the need to login through the Hub to start a meeting. We will keep this information private, but we may reach out to you if you use it regularly.

But please contact us (e.g. via Tech Reception) if you are using XR's Jitsi Meet, especially if you are holding a regular meeting, or have any feedback on what works and what could be better.

Future plans

We plan to implement scheduling in 2026. We hope to let you schedule a regular meeting on the hub for your circle, which will solve some problems (e.g. the captions lag starting a meeting). It's possible that you may be able to start a meeting without a hub account, but we're not sure yet, and in any case you may need to login to become a moderator ("host" in zoom terms, to e.g. enable the lobby). We may also enable some of the missing features.

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