BigBlueButton 4.0.0

This is the official release of BigBlueButton 4.0, the culmination of over 19 months of development, 6120 commits, 3 beta, and 5 release candidates.

BigBlueButton 4.0 is a major release built around a redesigned client and a new media stack:

• Redesigned client interface with a new navigation sidebar and an Apps Gallery, where apps and plugins can be pinned, searched and shown as a list or a grid
• Search in the user list, a redesigned timer, a dedicated guest management panel, a redesigned permissions (lock viewers) modal and an overhauled mobile layout
• Automatic light/dark theme following the operating system, and a dedicated Audio settings tab with Advanced Filtering (WASM noise suppression), Standard Filtering and Original Audio modes
• Request to Present: viewers can ask for the presenter role and moderators approve or deny (lockSettingsPresenterPolicy)
• Pinned chat messages, larger emoji-only messages, optional user consent before a moderator unmutes them, and a Multi-Functional Mode that opens two sidebar panels side by side
• Learning Dashboard for breakout rooms, with per-breakout data kept until the parent meeting ends
• LiveKit is the default media framework for audio, cameras and screen sharing; bbb-webrtc-sfu and FreeSWITCH stay installed and can be selected per meeting or server-wide
• BlockNote is the only shared notes editor; Etherpad is no longer installed
• Plugin SDK 1.0 (bigbluebutton-html-plugin-sdk 1.0.0-beta.3)

Under the hood, BigBlueButton 4.0 installs on Ubuntu 24.04 and moves to Node.js 24, Java 21, Grails 8.0.0, Gradle 9.8.0 and Spring Boot 4.1.1.

Link to the installation command / instructions / full list of features: https://docs.bigbluebutton.org/4.0/new-features

If you are upgrading a server that runs a 4.0 pre-release, read the upgrade notes in the 4.0.0-rc.5 release notes first (Etherpad removal, Node.js 24, plugin SDK version ranges), and the Grails 8 notes in new-features if you override bbb-web.service or depend on bbb-web's response headers.

Full list of changes since BBB 3.0: https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton/compare/v3.0.x-release...v4.0.x-release

The focus of BigBlueButton

When we created BigBlueButton in 2007, we created it with the mission to build the world's most effective virtual classroom measured in learning outcomes.

We created it to empower educators with built-in tools for active learning and live analytics to ensure every student learns.

In line with UN Sustainable Development Goal # 4: Quality Education for Everyone, we believe every student in the world deserves a high quality online learning experience. And we believe every educator deserves the best platform to provide it.

Also, as an open-source platform, BigBlueButton is freely available worldwide. If you are in education and teach students in live sessions, we built BigBlueButton for you.

As we evolve BigBlueButton 3.0 to 4.0, the new plug-in architecture enables the product to be used in other areas of communication. At the core, BigBlueButton 4.0 is an extensible platform with all the core collaboration features you would find in a commercial web conferencing system.

Thanks to our Community

The BigBlueButton project is supported by a world-wide community of developers, teachers, testers, and government, commercial, and educational organizations.

For this release, we want to thank in particular the following organizations.

We thank ZKI, the German association of Higher Education IT centers, for its members that have collectively (and continuously!) supported the overall development for this release. Notably, sponsoring the integration of LiveKit into BigBlueButton. We also thank the German Universities that have tested earlier builds of this release and given feedback and helped improve the overall quality of this release.

We thank the French Ministry of Education who have supported the development of features in this release, including BlockNote shared notes integration and the layout refactor.

We thank the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space, UNTERSTÜTZT DURCH: PROTOTYPE FUND for funding BigBlueBetterAudio

We thank the European Commission for funding a bug-bounty program with YesWeHack specifically to help improve the security of BigBlueButton.

We thank the many translators who helped ensure that BigBlueButton is localized.

Big THANK YOU to all community members who helped for this release - both through sending pull requests and through reporting bugs or requesting enhancements! :confetti_ball:

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BigBlueButton 4.0.0 closes out the release-candidate cycle with the bbb-web stack upgraded to Grails 8.0.0 / Spring Boot 4.1.1 and a set of fixes on top of 4.0.0-rc.5: the Learning Dashboard numbers untitled polls and quizzes in the order they were asked, recording playback restores the presentation zoom after a screen share ends, the external video player is recognized in production builds with the YouTube subtitles toggle back, and the client fixes the @ notification badge, the private-message read check on hover, the media-sharing and confirmation button sizes (on bbb-ui-components-react 0.9.0) and the recording button and mobile leave menu in the navigation bar. bbb-transcription-controller moves to v0.4.0 (Node.js 24 support), and final-release packages are now versioned above their release candidates so servers on a 4.0 pre-release upgrade to 4.0.0. Below is a list of the pull requests in this iteration, grouped by component.

Link to installation command / instructions / schedule / planned features: https://docs.bigbluebutton.org/4.0/new-features

Big THANK YOU to all community members who helped for this release - both through sending pull requests and through reporting bugs or requesting enhancements! :confetti_ball:

HTML5 client

fixes

• fix(sidebar-navigation): make the @ notification badge legible by @germanocaumo in https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton/pull/25993
• [4.0] fix(chat): keep the read check clear of the message time on hover by @Tainan404 in https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton/pull/25974
• fix(html5): keep media-sharing and confirmation buttons at a consistent size by @germanocaumo in https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton/pull/25942
• fix(external-video): recognize the player in production builds, restore the YouTube subtitles toggle by @germanocaumo in https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton/pull/25994
• fix(nav-bar): recording button and mobile leave menu polish by @AtilaU19 in https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton/pull/25999

locales

• [4.0 locales] Updates for file bigbluebutton-html5/public/locales/en.json by @transifex-integration[bot] in https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton/pull/26019

Core

• build: upgrade bbb-web stack to Grails 8.0.0 / Spring Boot 4.1.1 by @antobinary in https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton/pull/25466

Learning dashboard

• [4.0] fix(learning-dashboard): number untitled polls and quizzes in the order they were asked by @Tainan404 in https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton/pull/25988

Recording

• fix(recording): restore presentation panzoom after screenshare stops by @Tainan404 in https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton/pull/25991

Packaging and configuration

• build: Update bbb-transcription-controller to v0.4.0 by @antobinary in https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton/pull/26010
• fix(build): version final-release debs above their release candidates by @antobinary in https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton/pull/26049

Documentation

• docs: 4.0.0 preparations by @antobinary in https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton/pull/26045

Chore

• chore(html5): bump bbb-ui-components-react to 0.9.0 by @germanocaumo in https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton/pull/25989
• chore: Revise security support details in SECURITY.md by @antobinary in https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton/pull/26047
• chore: BigBlueButton 4.0.0 iteration by @antobinary in https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton/pull/26005
• chore: Merge V4.0.x develop into v4.0.x-release again by @antobinary in https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton/pull/26050

Full Changelog: https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton/compare/v4.0.0-rc.5...v4.0.0

Release name

Passing -v noble-400 to https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bbb-install/blob/v4.0.x-release/bbb-install.sh will always install the latest released BigBlueButton 4.0 version.

If for some reason you would like to install this specific release, pass -v noble-400-4.0.0.

We still recommend using -v noble-400 as this repository is continually updated with each BigBlueButton 4.0 release.