Jangouts vs Janus
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?
Jangouts
Videoconferencing based on WebRTC and Janus Gateway with an UI
VS
Janus
General-purpose, lightweight, minimalist WebRTC Server
| Feature | Jangouts | Janus |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Video Conferencing | Video Conferencing |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Language | JavaScript | C |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 50 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal | bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 444 | ★ 9,144 |
| First released | 2025 | 2020 |
| Replaces | Google Hangouts, Skype | — |
Why pick each one
Choose Jangouts if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Written in JavaScript
- Tiny footprint — runs in 50 MB RAM
Choose Janus if…
- Released under the GPL-3.0 license
- Mature project with 9.1k GitHub stars
- Written in C
- Lightweight — runs in 512 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Jangouts or Janus better?
Neither is universally better. Janus has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Jangouts and Janus free and open-source?
Yes. Jangouts is licensed under MIT and Janus under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Jangouts and Janus with Docker?
Jangouts: check the project docs for container support. Janus: check the project docs for container support.