Why Your Business Should Own Its Video Calls (And How Jitsi Makes It Affordable)
Video calls have become the backbone of modern business. Team standups, client presentations, job interviews, board meetings. If your company went remote or hybrid in the past few years, you probably spend hours each week on Zoom or Microsoft Teams.
But here's something worth thinking about: every conversation your team has on those platforms flows through someone else's servers. Your strategy discussions, your contract negotiations, your product roadmaps. All of it lives on infrastructure you don't control.
The Hidden Costs of Cloud Video
Zoom and Teams aren't free, even on their "free" tiers. You pay with limitations, and eventually, you pay with money.
A 20-person team on Zoom Business costs around $200 per month. Microsoft Teams comes bundled with Microsoft 365, which runs $12-20 per user monthly. That's $240-400 for the same team size, and you're paying for a lot of features you might not need.
But the real cost isn't just the subscription. It's what happens when:
- Your video quality degrades because you're sharing bandwidth with millions of other users
- A platform outage takes down your critical client call
- Your industry regulations require you to prove where your data is stored
- A security breach exposes your meeting recordings to unauthorized access
These scenarios aren't hypothetical. Zoom faced multiple security incidents in 2020. Microsoft Teams has had several high-profile outages affecting millions of users. When your business depends on video calls, depending on someone else's infrastructure becomes a risk.
What Self-Hosted Video Looks Like
Jitsi is video conferencing software you can run on your own servers. Open-source, battle-tested, and used by millions of people daily. It works just like Zoom: you create a meeting room, share a link, and participants join through their browser. No downloads required.
The difference is where the video streams flow. Instead of routing through Zoom's data centers, your calls stay on infrastructure you control. For businesses handling sensitive information, this matters.
What you get with Jitsi:
HD video and screen sharing: The core features work exactly like commercial alternatives. Multiple participants, screen sharing, chat, recording capabilities.
No per-user fees: Whether you have 10 employees or 100, your cost is the server infrastructure, not a per-seat license.
Complete data control: Meeting recordings, chat logs, participant data. It all stays on your servers under your security policies.
Customization options: Brand the interface with your company logo. Integrate with your existing calendar and authentication systems.
No artificial limits: No 40-minute meeting caps. No restrictions on the number of participants your plan allows.
Real Use Cases
Different businesses adopt Jitsi for different reasons:
Healthcare providers use it for telemedicine because they can prove HIPAA compliance with their own infrastructure. Patient consultations stay within their controlled environment.
Legal firms handle sensitive client discussions knowing that privileged communications aren't sitting on a third party's servers waiting for a subpoena.
Financial services satisfy regulatory requirements by maintaining complete audit trails of who accessed which meetings and when.
Education institutions run virtual classrooms without worrying about student data privacy regulations or unexpected platform policy changes.
Growing startups avoid the per-user cost trap that makes video conferencing increasingly expensive as they scale.
The Cost Reality
Running your own video infrastructure sounds expensive, but the math often favors self-hosting:
| Solution | 20-Person Team Monthly | Annual Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Zoom Business | $200 | $2,400 |
| Microsoft Teams (M365) | $240-400 | $2,880-4,800 |
| Jitsi on Elestio | ~$30 | $360 |
The savings grow as your team grows. A 50-person company might pay $500+ monthly for Zoom. With Jitsi, you're still paying for server resources, not seats.
The infrastructure cost stays relatively flat regardless of user count. What matters is concurrent meeting load, not total employee headcount.
Common Concerns
"We don't have IT expertise for this."
Managed hosting eliminates the technical burden. Platforms like Elestio handle server management, updates, backups, and security patches. You get the benefits of self-hosting without becoming a system administrator.
"What about reliability?"
Self-hosted doesn't mean amateur hour. Jitsi powers major deployments including 8x8's commercial video platform. The same codebase handles enterprise-scale traffic.
"Will our team actually use it?"
Jitsi's interface is intuitive. Click a link, join a meeting. Browser-based access means no software installation battles. Most teams adapt within a single call.
Getting Started
The fastest path to self-hosted video is managed deployment. Elestio offers Jitsi with everything pre-configured: SSL certificates, automatic backups, and a clean interface ready for your team.
Deploy in minutes, not weeks. Connect your domain, customize the branding if you want, and start scheduling meetings. Your video calls, your servers, your rules.
For businesses tired of subscription creep and data concerns, Jitsi on Elestio offers a straightforward alternative: professional video conferencing without the platform dependency.
Thanks for reading!