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BigBlueButton became part of Moodle core in 2021, giving every Moodle teacher a virtual classroom out of the box. That’s a solid foundation, but core moves at the pace of a stable, broadly-used product. BNX (BigBlueButton BN Experience) is how Blindside Networks keeps pushing the experience forward, without forking or patching Moodle core. BNX is a free Moodle subplugin (bbbext_bnx) available on the Moodle Plugins directory. Install it alongside the core BigBlueButton activity and it upgrades the experience immediately, no migration, no fork, no risk to your existing setup.

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What BNX gives you today

BNX ships concrete, visible improvements to the day-to-day BigBlueButton experience in Moodle:

PreSession Lobby

Replaces the confusing “Wait for Moderator” screen with a proper lobby, so participants always know where they stand.

Modernised recordings view

A responsive, searchable, sortable recordings table with inline editing, replacing the legacy YUI datatable.

Integrated reminders and lock settings

Consolidated administration for session reminders and BigBlueButton lock controls, in one place.

Improved group session handling

Targeted fixes for reliability in courses that lean heavily on Moodle groups and groupings.
For the full breakdown of what changed, see BigBlueButton activity view with BNX and BNX framework and feature enhancements.

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Why BNX exists

Once BigBlueButton lived in Moodle core, every customer-driven enhancement had three uncomfortable options: fork core and lose upstream compatibility, patch core upstream and wait through a long, high-bar release cycle, or ship one-off plugins that don’t scale once there are several of them competing for the same hooks. BNX is the fourth option: one safe place to extend and override core BigBlueButton behavior, designed from day one to host additional capabilities on top of it. Moodle core stays clean, administrators get predictable upgrades, and new functionality plugs in as a sidecar — added, swapped, or scoped to a specific deployment without disturbing anything else.

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A framework, not just a feature pack

BNX is deliberately built as an extensible foundation. Anything shipped in BNX today, the PreSession Lobby, the recordings view, reminders, lock settings, is also a proof point for the same extend-don’t-replace pattern that powers everything after it. That extensibility is what unlocks the wider BNX family of sidecars, optional subplugins that build on the BNX framework to add capabilities Blindside Networks builds for customers who need to go further than usability polish, into analytics, reporting, and integrations.

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The BNX sidecar ecosystem

BNX Insights

Brings the Moodle course roster into the BigBlueButton session and surfaces relevant Moodle context as in-session alerts, so teachers see who’s expected, not just who showed up.

BNX DataHub

Exposes session and recording data to downstream tools such as reporting, analytics, and other integrations, through a clean, secure interface.
Sidecars are offered by Blindside Networks as complementary components for organizations that want more than the free, open-source BNX base plugin provides. Each sidecar has its own installation and licensing, and installs cleanly alongside BNX without affecting other sidecars or Moodle core.

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Get BNX

BNX is available now on the Moodle Plugins directory at marketplace.moodle.com/plugins/bbbext_bnx. Requirements: Moodle 5.1+ recommended, BigBlueButtonBN ≥ 2025100600.
BNX Insights and BNX DataHub are complementary components provided by Blindside Networks for organizations that want expanded analytics and integration capabilities. Contact Blindside Networks to learn more about availability and licensing.