Fully Managed PILOS
as a Service

Deploy PILOS as a fully managed service starting at €9/mo. Get automated backups, SSL, updates, support and monitoring included.

PILOS is an open-source front end for BigBlueButton, the web-conferencing engine many universities run in place of Zoom. It manages rooms, recordings, user access, and a pool of conferencing servers from one interface, giving your team live meetings and lecture capture on infrastructure you control rather than a per-seat subscription.

✓Free 7-day trial  ✓99.9% Uptime SLA  ✓No credit card  ✓Cancel anytime

✓Free 7-day trial  ✓99.9% Uptime SLA
✓No credit card  ✓Cancel anytime

Start free trial
Pricing
PILOS

PILOS

STARTING AT

€9/month
Automated Backups
Monitoring
Automated Updates
Auto SSL

USAGE

Unlimited
Human Support
Custom Domains
Terminal Access
File Manager Access
Deploy in your region — 21 locations worldwide
GermanyFinlandNetherlandsUKSwedenUnited StatesCanadaSingaporeJapanAustraliaBrazilSouth Africa+9 more →
PILOS Preview Image

ABOUT THE SOFTWARE

What is PILOS

PILOS is an open-source front end for BigBlueButton, the web-conferencing engine used widely across education. It manages rooms, recordings, user roles, and a pool of conferencing servers from one interface. It began at a German university and is released under the LGPL.

PILOS is built and maintained by a faculty team at Technische Hochschule Mittelhessen, a German university of applied sciences, and is released under the LGPL-2.1 licence. The back end is built on the Laravel framework with a Vue 3 interface; meetings run on BigBlueButton, which carries the audio, video, and screen sharing over WebRTC.

PILOS does not host meetings itself: it drives one or more BigBlueButton servers and presents rooms, recordings, and access controls to users. It ships an official container image and includes a built-in load balancer, so a single PILOS install can sit in front of a whole pool of conferencing servers. Universities run it in place of the default BigBlueButton front end because it adds sign-on, role-based access, and server management that larger deployments need.

FEATURES

What PILOS does

PILOS turns a BigBlueButton server pool into a platform people can use day to day: rooms they own, recordings they can find, and access rules an administrator can set. These are the capabilities it adds.

Personal and shared rooms

Each user gets durable rooms with their own links, settings, and access rules, so a lecturer or trainer reuses the same room all term.

Built-in load balancer

PILOS places each meeting on the least-busy server in a pool, weighing cameras, microphones, and listeners, so no single server is overloaded.

Recording management and playback

Sessions record to the server and play back in the browser, with controls for who can view them and how long they are kept.

Single sign-on

LDAP, Shibboleth, and OpenID Connect let people sign in with existing accounts; OpenID Connect arrived in version 4.8.0.

Roles and permissions

Administrators assign roles that control who can create rooms, manage servers, and view recordings, which matters once a deployment has many users.

Room access control

Waiting rooms, access codes, and guest links decide who joins and when, from open public sessions to closed board meetings.

Server and pool administration

Operators add, remove, and monitor conferencing servers from the interface, and move load between them without downtime.

Attendance and statistics

Per-room attendance logs and usage statistics support completion records, quorum counts, and capacity planning.

Software Source
Documentation
Video Tutorials

WHAT'S ALWAYS INCLUDED

Every app. Fully managed.
Nothing extra to pay for.

Every app on DANIAN ships with the same operational baseline. You do not choose a backup add-on or a monitoring tier. Hosting, patching, backups, SSL, and support are part of the €9, and they apply to PILOS the same way they apply to everything else in the catalog.

Automatic updates and patches

Apps run the latest stable version. Security patches applied silently, with rollback if needed.

Daily off-site backups

Multiple daily backups in redundant off-site locations. One-click restore if anything goes wrong.

24/7 uptime monitoring

Continuous monitoring with instant alerting. We respond before you notice.

SSL, firewall, DDoS protection

Auto-renewing SSL, hardened firewall rules, DDoS mitigation on every deployment.

Performance and scaling

We monitor resource usage continuously. When your app needs more headroom, we flag it and upgrade with your explicit approval.

Dedicated engineering support

Real engineers by email and ticket. DNS, SMTP & migration help. All included in €9.

Start 7-day free trial

WHY MANAGED

Why teams pick managed PILOS

Most teams reach BigBlueButton after a video-conferencing bill or a sovereignty decision pushes them off proprietary tools. The software is open and capable; the operations are the hard part. Managed hosting removes the part that tends to break at the worst time.

The trigger is rarely subtle. In January 2026, France moved its state administration off Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Webex, and Google Meet toward open-source tools it hosts itself, and a wave of public institutions and universities is doing the same. BigBlueButton is the open engine many of them land on. Getting it running, and keeping it running, is where the work hides.

BigBlueButton installs only on a clean, dedicated Ubuntu server. The installer refuses other versions and will not share a host with another web app. It needs a TURN server so people behind office or campus firewalls can connect their camera and microphone at all; a misconfigured one is the single most common reason a fresh server looks fine yet no media flows. Recordings run through a render pipeline that fails quietly, and major version upgrades break things if you move without testing.

REVIEWS

Hear from customers ​like you​​​​​​​

Successful businesses and professionals around the world rely on DANIAN every day
5 stars review

No more maintenance headaches!

Finally, I can relax and not bother with maintenance. Each of the softwares that we run on DANIAN is automated and running stable for couple months already. They even assist us with modifying the DNS records. Once we needed to modify the config of Nextcloud so that we are able to upload higher than 5GB files and they assisted us fast. I also love their documentation!

Review from Kevin Blackwell

Kevin Blackwell

Review Origin United States
5 stars review

Best managed service

I previously ran Peertube, Mastodon, Mattermost and Mirotalk on other providers before switching to DANIAN. I was tired of handling the updates and backups myself. Not only that the performance is "out of this world" fast, but their tech support is amazing. Since then I added 5-10 more Apps on my account. I also love how they add more softwares on their list constantly!

Review from William Northfield

William Northfield

Review Origin United Kingdom
5 stars review

Love the personalized service!

I own an ecommerce startup. I knew that I need some softwares so that I add automations in my biz. I contacted their support team and I explained my needs. Albert recommended me couple softwares, each for a specific use-case. I signed up for the free trial and tested all. Ended up activating 6 apps. Everything is running smooth 2 months so far. I love the personalized service that I get with them!

Review from George Adams

George Adams

Review Origin United States
5 stars review

n8n runs excellent

We needed to add the ffmpeg functionality to our n8n instance. I contacted their support team. They made the required changes in couple minutes and notified me. Usually for this type of service I would need to hire a developer on a hourly basis. Love them!

Review from David Hartmann

David Hartmann

Review Origin Germany
5 stars review

Smooth experience

I needed a way to manage the projects and files for my company. This was the first time I learn about opensource. I asked their support team and they assisted me immediately. I started with Openproject. Later I added Nextcloud. My team were able to get used to the apps fast.

Review from Levi Nilsso

Levi Nilsson

Review Origin Norway
5 stars review

Bye GA

I wanted to replace GA with something but I didn't know the options. I talked with Jack from support. Couple minutes after that, I have a running Matomo Analytics. They even configured the tracking and connected it with my website. I have only words of appreciation and respect!

Review from Wyatt Mitchell

Wyatt Mitchell

Review Origin Canada
5 stars review

Love the freedom

I wanted to use a crm for my startup. I signed up for the free trial. Tried out espocrm and dolibar and picked one. Their dashboard is very easy for a beginner. I recommend them and feel confident in choosing them.

Review from Elias Koch

Elias Koch

Review Origin Germany
5 stars review

Wow just wow

After discovering DANIAN, I wished I'd found them sooner — their solution is excellent and deserves wider recognition. Very good solution!

Review from Tyler Hollander

Tyler Hollander

Review Origin Canada
5 stars review

Professional tech support!

I thought that I knew what I was doing and I made changes in the Mattermost backend config file. Then it broke. I reached out to their tech and received an incredibly specific and fast response. They found the error fast and provided a clear solution.

Review from Bastian Engel

Bastian Engel

Review Origin Germany
5 stars review

Their support team is the best!

I had a problem with my card and the subscription could not be renewed in time. I notified their support and surprisingly, they showed much understanding. They basically left my apps run until I solved the card issue. Other providers would have deleted my data in a heartbeat. This is the way to build client-vendor trust!

Review from George Adams

George Adams

Review Origin United States
5 stars review

Fair price and fast

4 months ago I activated n8n, Uptime kuma, Vaultwarden and Paperlessngx. So far everything is perfect. The performance of all apps is excellent. I contacted their support team couple times for using custom subdomains for the apps and they were fast and kind. I'm constantly recommending them to my network!

Review from Atanas

Atanas

Review Origin Macedonia
5 stars review

Vaultwarden 10/10

I wanted to selfhost a passwords manager for my company but I didn't trust the mainstream providers. I tried out Vaultwarden for the free trial. I loved how their support team communicated with me professionally but still kind. I know that I can contact them whenever with whatever question I have. Recommended!

Review from James Smith

James Smith

Review Origin United States
5 stars review

Multiple locations options

I run an agency. The majority of our clients are in different countries. I love that DANIAN has 20+ countries and I can spin up any app in any location. This gives us the freedom to focus on our clients. Sure, I can employee a dev in my team, but honestly, I prefer to not have those headaches. With DANIAN everything is running 24/7.

Review from Edward Nelson

Edward Nelson

Review Origin United States
5 stars review

Everything just works!

My focus is on my business, not running servers. I love that I can lauch any app without having to think about the tech behind it. Everything just works!

Review from Tony Roy

Tony Roy

Review Origin United States
5 stars review

Awesome support team!

I signed up for the free trial in order to test Chatwoot. I needed to put a livechat widget on my website but I don't have much tech experience. I contacted their support to see if they can assist. They went above and beyond by generating the livechat widget code for me and inserting it in my website. They answered all my additional questions. 

Review from Filip

Filip

Review Origin Austria
5 stars review

Very proactive!

Today couple of the videos on my Peertube got viral. Before I even noticed, their support have notified me via email that they proactively upgraded my app with more cpu & ram so that it continues to work without any downtime. They left the upgraded app with the added resources for couple days until the traffic stabilizes. After that I had the possiblity to stay on the same plan or keep the upgraded plan. Out of gratitude I stayed on the upgraded one.

Review from Luke Hall

Luke Hall

Review Origin Australia
5 stars review

Win-win!

I run a web design biz. After I perform the work for my clients, they constantly ask me for more software solutions. So I partnered with DANIAN. Not only I provide the requested softwares for my clients and get the increased revenue boost by delegating all to DANIAN, but also for those clients that wish to order directly from DANIAN, I send them an affiliate link. Win-win on all sides!

Review from Luke Walker

Luke Walker

Review Origin United Kingdom
5 stars review

Flexible

For the past couple months I was running many apps with DANIAN for my clients. But one of my clients wanted a software that isn't on the current list. I talked with their tech support. They accomodated me and added the software the same day. The next day, I signed for their Partners program. We will go long way together!

Review from Jeffrey Johnson

Jeffrey Johnson

Review Origin United States
5 stars review

Awesome customer service

I needed to add analytics on my website but I didn't know anything about DNS. Their team guided me at all phases and they performed the changes for me. Additionally they were transparent and notified me of every change applied and steps performed.

Review from Gabriele Marino

Gabriele Marino

Review Origin Italy
5 stars review

Good admin dashboard

Not only that I got Chatwoot, I also have access to the management dashboard. I love that I can view my hourly/daily usage and perform manual backups and restorations if needed. I don't need the level of control but it feels good to know that I have it if I need it.

Review from Matthew Turner

Matthew Turner

Review Origin Canada
5 stars review

Financially wise decision

Why install Chatwoot on a VPS that will cost me $20-25/month. Then worry about security, updates, backups, etc. Instead, I can activate it on DANIAN the same day for half the price. Plus, less headaches for maintenance. So happy I found out about this company!

Review from Andreas Schmitt

Andreas Schmitt

Review Origin Germany
5 stars review

Great service!

I configure custom Matomo tracking for my clients as a monthly service. Many of my clients were asking if they can selfhost Matomo instead of using the Cloud service. My employee recommended DANIAN. Basically, I can activate as much Matomo's in any of 20+ countries the same day. Additionally the affiliate revenue is a nice bonus.

Review from Jacob Turner

Jacob Turner

Review Origin United States
5 stars review

Smooth experience

I was listing through youtube tuts on how to install Bookstack myself. Then randomly, I found their video playlist exactly for Bookstack. Got curious and went at their website. For the same price (or higher) that I would pay for just the VPS, with them I'm getting a fully managed Bookstack. It's a no-brainer decision!

Review from Elias Gustafsson

Elias Gustafsson

Review Origin Sweden
5 stars review

I love opensource software

2 days ago I haven't heard about opensource softwares. Today I'm running 4 apps and enjoying the trip. Hey, 1 month later I may become a developer, haha just kidding. Love you guys!

Review from Mason Hayes

Mason Hayes

Review Origin United Kingdom
5 stars review

Its a great service

Its a great service. I love the performance of my Mastodon community. It keeps on growing and I don't have any worries about backups, secuirity, updates, etc.

Review from Vinícius Rocha

Vinícius Rocha

Review Origin Brazil
5 stars review

Very intuitive solution!

I wanted to use a nocode software for my company. A friend recommended them so I tried both Baserow and NocoDB, couple days later picked one.

Review from Haruto Hashimoto

Haruto Hashimoto

Review Origin Japan
5 stars review

Top-notch security

Honestly, I don't care much about performance and functionalities. I just wish to not bother with hacking attacks so that I can focus on my firm. I recommend them!

Review from Henrik Otto

Henrik Otto

Review Origin Germany
See more reviews

USE CASES

Three teams who run PILOS on DANIAN

PILOS fits teams that hold live sessions for more people than a handful of paid seats can cover, and that want the recordings and the data on their own platform. Three patterns come up most.

UNIVERSITY FACULTY

Replacing Zoom for lectures after a renewal quote

A department runs lectures and seminars for hundreds of students in its own region. We size a server for peak lecture load, add a load-balanced pool for exam-week spikes, wire sign-on to the university identity provider, and set recording retention to the term calendar.

MUNICIPAL IT CENTRE

Digital council and committee meetings

A council holds hybrid committee sessions that must be recorded with attendance and open to the public. We turn on attendance logging, retain recordings to the record-keeping period, and set a waiting room with guest links so the public can observe without an account.

TRAINING PROVIDER

Cohort webinars with on-demand replay

A training company runs paid cohorts across the week and needs completion records. We set per-room access codes, attendance logging for completion records, breakout rooms for group work, and recording retention so each session becomes the on-demand replay.

COMPARISON

Four ways to run PILOS

Zoom and its peers bill per host. BigBlueButton runs on a server you or we operate, so one managed host serves your whole team. The trade is real: for a single occasional user a paid Zoom seat is cheaper, but for any team or class the managed host wins on cost and control.

Path1 host5 hosts10 hostsYour ops time
Proprietary SaaS: ZoomBusiness plan, billed annually. 300-participant cap; sign-on on Business and up.~$18/mo~$92/mo~$183/moNone for meetings; per-seat billing scales with the team
Self-host on your own serverA dedicated 8-core / 16 GB server with 250 Mbit/s symmetrical bandwidth.~$50/mo~$50/mo~$50/mo2–4 hrs/mo: clean install, TURN, recordings, upgrades (€120–480/mo in time)
Home serverA tower such as an HP ProLiant ML30, plus electricity.Not realistic for productionA home line rarely provides the symmetrical bandwidth and public addressing BigBlueButton needs
DANIAN managed PILOSOne managed host serves your whole organisation.€9/mo€9/mo€9/mo0 hours; we run the servers

Zoom Business list price is $18.33 per host per month billed annually ($219.96 per host per year), so 5 and 10 hosts reach roughly $92 and $183 per month. DANIAN is not seat-metered: one managed host carries every named user, which is why its row stays flat. The crossover is around three to four Zoom hosts; below that a single Zoom seat is cheaper; above it the managed host costs less and adds the operations and control Zoom does not.

BY INDUSTRY

PILOS for specific industries

Different sectors put different demands on live video. A lecture hall, a council chamber, a training cohort, and an annual general meeting each need different recording, access, and sign-on rules. These are the four where managed PILOS fits the work most cleanly.

Recorded lectures need captions and transcripts so every student can use them, including those who cannot attend live. We size a server for peak lecture load, add a load-balanced pool for exam-week spikes, wire sign-on to the university identity provider, and set recording retention to the term calendar. A lecturer opens a personal room, students join by link or single sign-on, the session records, and the recording appears for replay. One 8-core server carries roughly 150 to 200 concurrent students, and a four-server pool runs sixteen simultaneous classes of fifty. PILOS began at a German university of applied sciences and runs today at several universities for exactly this.

Online council and committee meetings are typically recorded, minuted, and held with verifiable attendance, with a way for the public to observe. We turn on attendance logging, retain recordings to the record-keeping period, and set a waiting room plus guest links for public observers. A clerk opens the committee room, members join by single sign-on for the roll call, the public watches by guest link, and the recording is published afterward. One host seats a full council plus public viewers, up to 100 in a single meeting, and a server pool runs several committees at once. Municipal IT centres in Germany already run BigBlueButton with PILOS for digital council sessions.

Accredited courses need attendance and completion records, and recorded sessions need captions when they are sold or distributed. We set per-room access codes, attendance logging for completion records, recording retention for on-demand replay, and breakout rooms for group work. A trainer schedules a cohort room, learners join with an access code, breakout rooms run the exercises, and the recording becomes the on-demand replay. An 8-core server runs about sixteen simultaneous classes of twenty-five, so a single managed host covers a full training calendar without per-seat fees.

Annual general meetings and board sessions need recorded minutes, a verifiable quorum, and an attendance record. We turn on attendance logging for the quorum count, set a waiting room to admit verified members, keep recordings to the governance period, and add access codes for closed sessions. The secretary opens the meeting room, members are admitted from the waiting room, the vote and discussion record, and the minutes reference the saved recording. One host carries up to 100 members in a single session, with a pool for larger federations running regional chapters in parallel.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Three groups of questions: the technical detail of running PILOS and BigBlueButton, what moving to it involves, and how billing, support, and the platform work.

01

Technical and configuration

Yes. PILOS is a front end; it needs at least one BigBlueButton server to host the actual meetings.
Yes. PILOS has a built-in load balancer that places each meeting on the least-busy server in a pool, weighing cameras, microphones, and listeners.
PILOS supports LDAP, Shibboleth, and OpenID Connect, which arrived in version 4.8.0. We wire it to your existing identity provider during setup so staff sign in with the accounts they already have.
That is almost always a TURN server misconfiguration. BigBlueButton needs a correctly addressed coturn service so media can cross strict networks.
Yes. BigBlueButton records sessions and PILOS plays them back in the browser. We configure how long recordings are retained and watch the render pipeline, since a failed recording render otherwise passes unnoticed.
Chrome, Firefox, and Edge on desktop are fully supported, and Safari works on Mac and iOS. Screen sharing is not available from phones, so presenters should use a laptop or desktop.
Yes. PILOS supports a custom logo, colours, custom CSS, and a configurable footer and accessibility-statement link, so the platform carries your name rather than ours.

02

Migration and onboarding

21 datacenter locations across six continents. You choose the region at provisioning. Application data sits in the region you choose; pick whichever is closest to your users or matches your data-residency preference.
Yes. Request a region migration from the dashboard and we run the move in the background. The system emails you when the migration completes; total transfer time depends on data volume but typical instances finish in a few hours. There is no extra charge for a region change.
Yes. Full data export is available at any time, in a portable format you can bring to any infrastructure.
PILOS includes import commands for Greenlight v2 and v3 that bring across rooms, settings, and, in recent versions, existing recordings. Most teams keep their room links intact through the move.
Yes. We set up the custom domain and certificate and confirm the records with you. You do not need to touch a terminal.
Yes. We configure LDAP, Shibboleth, or OpenID Connect against your provider as part of setup, and test it with you before you roll it out to staff.

03

Billing, support, and platform

€9 covers everything we do for that app: hardware in the region you choose, daily off-site backups with one-click restore, automatic security patches and version upgrades, 24/7 monitoring, SSL and firewall, and engineering support on email and the ticket section in the client portal. There are no setup fees or hidden line items. For more info see our Pricing page.
If you decide to continue, we charge €9/app/month from day 8. If you don't, the trial ends and you can export your data. No card is required for the trial, and we never auto-charge you without explicit consent.
No. The €9/month is flat regardless of how many users log into your app. Add 5 users or 50; the price doesn't change.
24/7 email and ticket support, both staffed by engineers who run the systems. We handle DNS configuration, SMTP setup, app integrations, performance tuning, troubleshooting, and migration help. Response time is typically under an hour. There is no tier system — every customer gets the same support.
Yes. Cancel from the dashboard. We don't charge a cancellation fee, we don't lock data, and we will export your data to you on request before deletion. data to you on request before deletion.
Every customer instance is backed up daily to a separate region from the primary. We test restores. You can request a restore at any backup point within the retention window — usually 7 days for daily backups.
Your application data sits in the region you choose at provisioning — 21 datacenter locations across six continents. Account-level data (billing, account email, support ticket history) is processed centrally. Application data region is picked by you, per app.
99.9% uptime SLA on every app, every tenant. Service credits are documented at danian.co/service-level-agreement. The status page is located at status.danian.co.
When your tenant approaches the resource ceiling — the base tier holds 1 vCPU/RAM, 30 GB storage — we notify you. Resource upgrades happen with your explicit consent; we will not upgrade your tenant or charge you without it.
We wait. We don't suspend the app or delete your data on the first failed charge. We email you, you fix the card on file, and we continue.
Invoices can be downloaded from the billing dashboard in PDF the day each charge succeeds. EU VAT is added where applicable and the VAT-reverse-charge regime applies for VAT-registered businesses with a valid number.
150+ open-source apps across automation, team chat, file sync, analytics, AI, password management, email marketing, dev tools, project management, smart home, CMS, and federated social. See the full catalog →
Yes. Every instance comes with a web-based terminal and a file manager in your DANIAN management dashboard. Useful for managing your data and customizations.
Resources scale with your usage. If your app needs more vCPU, RAM, or storage, we add it — and we ask first before any change to your plan. €9 is the floor; resource-heavy workloads may price higher, but you'll always know in advance.
Yes. We have both a Partner program and an Affiliate program available. Anybody can sign up.
No contract. No minimum commitment. Cancel anytime from the dashboard with one click. The 7-day free trial requires no credit card. After the trial converts to paid, you can still cancel at any month without notice or penalty.

DEPLOY IN YOUR REGION

21 datacenter locations on six continents

Pick the region closest to your users.

United States, Germany, Finland, Singapore, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Netherlands, UK, Spain, Italy, France, Sweden, Malaysia, India, Japan, Mexico, Poland, South Korea, Chile, South Africa and more coming soon

Global Reach Map
Browse all 150+ apps →

Try managed PILOS for 7 days

No card. Cancel from the dashboard.
Start free trial