VoIPtopia 2017: Choosing the Best, Free VoIP Platform

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Once a year we like to step back and survey the latest and greatest VoIP developments for the coming year. And 2016 was certainly filled with surprises including the release of free versions of 3CX sporting the PIAF5 and Elastix 5.0 monikers. That, in turn, produced a wave of FUD from our friends at Sangoma® urging users to return to their open source roots. But guess what? Sangoma was pitching their FreePBX Distro®, another closed source product just like 3CX. Sure, the Sangoma distro has open source components… just like 3CX and your car for that matter. But it’s disingenuous to diss other products because they’re closed source platforms when yours is too. So today we want to cut through the sales pitches and compare apples to apples while offering our Elastix friends this New Year’s Day Resolution:

Ignore the Hype! Look Before You Leap and Avoid Jumping from the Kettle into the Fire.

Funny: Sangoma Reinforces Commitment to Open Source by Offering Migration Tool to its Closed Source Distro https://t.co/8QK22cWyi9 #asterisk

— Ward Mundy (@NerdUno) December 29, 2016

NEWS FLASH: For PIAF3 and Incredible PBX users who have registered on the PIAF Forum, you’ll be getting an invitation to upgrade to the 8-simultaneous-call 3CX commercial platform at no cost. In addition to unlimited extensions, this one-year license adds unlimited SIP trunks and gateways, 10-participant conferencing, G.729 support, custom FQDNs, BLF support, Call Parking, Call Queueing, Call Pickup, Call Recordings and Management, Call Reporting, Intercom/Paging, remote 3CX bridging support, as well as an integrated fax server and Office 365 and Microsoft Outlook integration. If you haven’t already joined the PIAF Forum, there’s still time. But you’d better hurry.

Choosing a VoIP platform is partially a subjective decision, but there also are some glaring red flags to consider. We suggest you begin by deciding whether your preferences include any must-have’s. Do your requirements mandate an open source solution? Do you need text-to-speech and voice recognition? Does the platform have to include Asterisk®, or are you open to alternatives? Does the operating system have to be Linux-based and, if so, must it be CentOS, Debian, or Ubuntu? If you’ll be using SIP phones, must the platform include phone provisioning software for your phones, or is the ability to purchase it as an add-on sufficient? Is paid support important in making your platform decision and how much are you prepared to pay? Are automatic or pain-free software updates critical in making your selection? Is migration from an existing platform a factor? Does a preconfigured, secure firewall matter, or are you prepared to do it yourself or take your chances? Before choosing to ignore security, read last month’s RIPS analysis of FreePBX®. Here’s a snippet from the article. Read it carefully. It’s your phone bill.

Since FreePBX is written completely in PHP, we decided to throw it into our code analysis tool RIPS. The results were more than surprising…

The total amount of detected vulnerabilities is very high. Luckily, the majority of the detected vulnerabilities are inside the administration control panel, such that attackers either need to steal a valid account or they have to trick an administrator into visiting a malicious website that triggers one of the critical vulnerabilities. For example, a remote command execution vulnerability could be triggered by a less critical cross-site scripting vulnerability. By chaining both vulnerabilities, the severity is increased drastically and can lead to full server compromise.

In choosing which platforms to include today, we eliminated platforms which we considered too complicated for the average new user to configure. We also eliminated any platform that did not offer at least a free tier of service with a reasonably complete feature set as part of their offering. If we’ve inadvertently missed one of your favorites, please feel free to leave a comment, and we will consider including it as well. Happy Hunting!

Published: Sunday, January 1, 2017

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Need help with Asterisk? Visit the PBX in a Flash Forum.

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Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

FULL DISCLOSURE: ClearlyIP, Skyetel, Vitelity, DigitalOcean, Vultr, VoIP.ms, 3CX, Sangoma, TelecomsXchange and VitalPBX have provided financial support to Nerd Vittles and our open source projects through advertising, referral revenue, and/or merchandise. As an Amazon Associate and Best Buy Affiliate, we also earn from qualifying purchases. We’ve chosen these providers not the other way around. Our decisions are based upon their corporate reputation and the quality of their offerings and pricing. Our recommendations regarding technology are reached without regard to financial compensation except in situations in which comparable products at comparable pricing are available from multiple sources. In this limited case, we support our sponsors because our sponsors support us.

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Special Thanks to Vitelity. Vitelity is now Voyant Communications and has halted new registrations for the time being. Our special thanks to Vitelity for their unwavering financial support over many years and to the many Nerd Vittles readers who continue to enjoy the benefits of their service offerings. We will keep everyone posted on further developments.
 

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Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…

1. See RIPStech article explaining why FreePBX module signature verification is a very dangerous methodology. [↩]