Compare video meeting apps
Google Meet vs Jitsi Meet
Google Meet and Jitsi Meet compared on what their own pages say, row by row — nothing about either in our words except a plain reading at the end.
Google Meet and Jitsi Meet, row by row
| Google Meet | Jitsi Meet | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan: how much | Not stated on the pages we read | “Jitsi Meet is a fully encrypted, 100% open source video conferencing solution that you can use all day, every day, for free” source |
| Free plan: longest meeting | “If your meeting has 3 or more participants, it has a time limit of one hour.” — a personal Google account; a call between two people can run 24 hours source | Not stated on the pages we read |
| Free plan: people in a meeting | “You can have a maximum of 100 participants in a meeting.” — a personal Google account source | Not stated on the pages we read |
| Accounts | Not stated on the pages we read | “Starting on August 24th, we will no longer support the anonymous creation of rooms on meet.jit.si, and will require the use of an account” — Jitsi's blog, 22 August 2023, about whoever opens a room on meet.jit.si source |
| Cheapest paid plan | “$7 per user / month” — Business Starter, with a year's commitment ($8.40 month to month) source | Not stated on the pages we read |
| Paid plan: longest meeting | “Meeting length (maximum) 24 hours” — every Workspace plan source | Not stated on the pages we read |
| Most people in a meeting | “Video meetings with in-domain live streaming, 1000 participants” — Enterprise source | Not stated on the pages we read |
| Video recording | “Video meetings with recording, noise cancellation, 150 participants” — Business Standard; Starter's line reads "Video meetings, 100 participants" source | “The easiest way to record is to live stream your conference to YouTube and access the recording there.” source |
| AI notes and summaries | “Gemini AI assistant in Gmail, Docs, Meet, and more” — Business Standard and up; Starter's reads "Gemini AI assistant in Gmail" source | Not stated on the pages we read |
| Run it yourself | Not stated on the pages we read | “For such cases we strongly recommend hosting your own deployment of Jitsi Meet.” — for people who would rather not sign in source |
| API | Not stated on the pages we read | “JaaS Dev 25 Monthly Active Users Free” — 8x8's Jitsi as a Service, for building Jitsi into your own app; JaaS Basic is $99 a month for 300 source |
Every cell is the company's own words, linked. Prices change — this is what each page said on 10 November 2026. Something changed? Tell us.
What the two pages add up to
- Jitsi Meet is open source and free to use, and can be run on your own server; Google Meet is Google’s service only.
- On meet.jit.si, opening a room has needed an account since August 2023, for whoever opens it.
- Jitsi’s answer to recording is a YouTube live stream; Google records to Drive on Business Standard and up.
Which matters for your meetings
Jitsi's draw is that it is open source: anyone can run it on their own server, and Jitsi's own people recommend that to anyone who would rather not sign in. On meet.jit.si, whoever opens a room now needs an account. Google Meet's free calls are capped at an hour for groups; Jitsi's page names no limit, and its way to record is a YouTube live stream.
What that comes to, worked out
Take a volunteer group's monthly meeting: twelve people for 90 minutes. On personal Google accounts it stops at the hour. Jitsi's page names no time limit, and meet.jit.si is free, though the person who opens the room has to sign in. If the group would rather keep the meeting off someone else's servers altogether, Jitsi's own advice is to run it yourself, which Google Meet does not offer. To keep a record, Jitsi points to a YouTube live stream, while Google records only on Business Standard and up.
The sums use only the numbers quoted above. Yearly prices are the monthly figure times twelve.
Where Meetful is different from both
Meetful is a video meeting app too, but the notes are part of the meeting rather than an extra. Each person is transcribed from their own microphone, so every line carries the name of whoever said it without guessing, and nobody has to invite a bot. People join from a link in their browser. The notes, the recording and the transcript are free, and anybody in the meeting can leave themselves out of the notes.
Other comparisons
Try Meetful
Meetings that take their own notes
Free video meetings in the browser: every line of the transcript under the name of who said it, and the summary and action items when you hang up. Nothing to install — guests just open the link.