Jitsi vs Webex
Jitsi is a European alternative to Webex: same messaging & chat use case, headquartered in France and operating under GDPR by default, while Webex is based in the United States.
By the EU Alternatives team Last updated
Conduct secure, free, open-source video conferences on web and mobile. No account required. Integrate into your apps or host on your own servers.
- Jurisdiction
- EU / EEA
- GDPR by default
- Yes
- US CLOUD Act exposure
- No
- Open source
- No
- Free tier
- No
A curated collection of the best European alternatives to Webex.
- Jurisdiction
- US
- GDPR by default
- Requires DPA + TIA
- US CLOUD Act exposure
- Yes
Jitsi vs Webex at a glance
| Jitsi | Webex | |
|---|---|---|
| Headquarters | France | US |
| Data jurisdiction | EU / EEA | US law applies |
| GDPR by default | Yes | Requires DPA + transfer assessment |
| US CLOUD Act exposure | No | Yes |
| Open source | No | — |
| Free tier | No | — |
| Best for | Teams that need messaging & chat with EU data residency | Teams already invested in the Webex ecosystem |
Choose Jitsi if…
- You want your data to stay under EU law without extra legal paperwork
- GDPR compliance or public-sector requirements apply to you
- You'd rather back the European tech ecosystem
Stick with Webex if…
- You depend on integrations only available in the Webex ecosystem
- Your organisation has no EU data-residency constraints
- Migration costs outweigh the jurisdiction benefits for now
About Jitsi
Jitsi is an open-source video conferencing platform providing free, unlimited video meetings, webinars and team collaboration over WebRTC. Originally developed in Strasbourg, France and now stewarded by 8x8, Jitsi powers millions of self-hosted and Jitsi Meet-hosted conferences with no account required and no participant cap beyond hardware limits.
The platform ships as two complementary projects: Jitsi Videobridge, a scalable Selective Forwarding Unit (SFU) that handles large group calls, and Jitsi Meet, the full web client with chat, screen sharing, raised hands, reactions, breakout rooms, live streaming to YouTube and recording to Dropbox. Everything runs in a modern browser without plugins, with mobile apps for iOS and Android.
Key benefits:
- Fully open-source under Apache 2.0 with public GitHub repositories and releases
- Self-hostable on any Linux server with Debian/Ubuntu packages and Docker images
- Unlimited participants per conference subject to SFU and bandwidth capacity
- End-to-end encryption (E2EE) on supported browsers via insertable streams
- Screen sharing, recording and live streaming to YouTube out of the box
- Breakout rooms, polls, raised hands and reactions for modern meeting workflows
- Embed via iframe API or integrate deeply through the Jitsi Meet SDK
Jitsi is developed by 8x8 with core engineering teams in France, and the hosted Jitsi Meet service runs on European and US infrastructure. Self-hosted deployments let operators keep all signalling, media and recording data entirely inside the EU under GDPR, with full control over logs, retention and sub-processors.
Trusted by universities, NGOs, governments and millions of individual users, Jitsi is the reference choice for teams that want a privacy-respecting, open-source video conferencing stack with full EU self-hosting options.
Why choose Jitsi over Webex?
The decisive argument is data jurisdiction. Webex is headquartered in US, which means personal data processed through it can be subject to non-EU legal regimes: the US CLOUD Act, FISA 702, or similar laws depending on the provider. After the 2020 Schrems II ruling, EU organisations must carry out a transfer impact assessment for every such data flow.
Jitsi removes that overhead. As a France-based provider, it operates natively under GDPR, and data stays inside the EU/EEA by default. For regulated sectors such as health, public administration, and finance, that's not a nice-to-have but a requirement. For everyone else, it's concentration-risk insurance: you avoid depending on a single non-EU jurisdiction that can change the rules without warning.