Greenlight vs eturnal
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted video conferencing options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Greenlight
Front-end for managing BigBlueButton meeting rooms
VS
eturnal
STUN and TURN server for real-time applications
| Feature | Greenlight | eturnal |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Video Conferencing | Video Conferencing |
| License | LGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Ruby | Erlang |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 1,024 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | docker, source | docker, binary, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 848 | ★ 340 |
| First released | 2016 | 2020 |
| Replaces | Zoom, Google Meet | Twilio STUN/TURN |
Why pick each one
Choose Greenlight if…
- Released under the LGPL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Written in Ruby
Choose eturnal if…
- Released under the Apache-2.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Written in Erlang
- Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Greenlight or eturnal better?
Neither is universally better. Greenlight has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Greenlight and eturnal free and open-source?
Yes. Greenlight is licensed under LGPL-3.0 and eturnal under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Greenlight and eturnal with Docker?
Greenlight: yes. eturnal: yes.