Asterisk

Asterisk as a telephony platform between branches of the institution and in applications

Comments: Our experience using Asterisk has been very good since it has allowed us to interconnect the institution's branches via VoIP and it has also been possible to scale without problems. In addition to integrating with applications towards the end user

Pros:

Asterisk is a flexible VoIP platform that allows interaction with telephone systems within the institution nationwide, also allows integration with specific business applications

Cons:

The implementation can be a bit complicated because the server cards and the services of the telephony provider have to be compatible.

Asterisk is the world wide best software at no cost PBX!

Comments: I use Asterisk since 20 years and it is absolutely the best sofwtare at no cost.

Pros:

It ha no cost, it is open standard, fully customzable. AGI Scripts help to add features to asterisk and it is very easy to connect it to other softwares.

Cons:

I like everything of Asterisk. It is really the best.

Good open source VOIP solution

Comments: If you want a good and free open source VOIP solution that you can manage in house, then Asterisk is a good choice. It can be easily installed (not upgraded however) and managed by IT system administrators. Is logic (queues, SIP opening and context for calling) is something that you will figure out quite quickly. You can even use multiple WAN ports and multiple SIP trunk operators with the same server so this is also an advantage. The biggest disadvantage is that if a new version comes out it is easier to do the fresh installation then rater to go and try to make an upgrade. Overall, as an open source system it is a great value for money.

Top Tier Phone System - Do Not Dismiss it!

Pros:

We use Asterisk in conjunction with FreePBX for our business phone solution, it's certainly no easy task to deploy or configure. The documentation available is vast however being an open source project you will run into a few issues dialling in your configuration to the best possible specification. Cost wise it's very cost effective and that's why I believe it's a top tier solution you should consider for any size of business. We have around 300 phones deployed with Asterisk / FreePBX and when comparing the costs against industry leading phone solutions we are saving tens of thousands of pounds per year. It's certainly not without it's faults but it's very feature rich and if you're willing to put in the hours and study you can develop your own applications or custom scripts to tailor the phone system to your businesses needs and whims.

Cons:

As mentioned the difficulty of deployment is quite high, not every IT engineer will have the skill set to just stand up this system it does take time and you will run into a few gremlins but certainly you'll not be doing yourself any justice by passing this up.

Phone system, simple and the best!!!

Comments: An amazing free platform! In my industry, we use it everyday and it eases our day-to-day communications. Asterisk, you are unique!!!!

Pros:

Asterisk is a real time voice and video application, the following points made me recommend it to my industry. -It is a free software!!! so amazing with the great solutions it provides -It is easy to setup and user friendly. Working as the Network and systems administrator in my industry (education), I discovered asterisk and amazingly I needed not a sophisticated machine to run it and it worked well on VM. Very easy to set up and the user interface is as friendly as I was able to navigate with ease. -Asterisk is stable, reliable and SIP configurations are perfect and so adaptable. In my industry (education)we use it for conference calls and employees answer calls on Asterisk. -Presently, I am including students in the system such that while on campus they can benefit from free phone calls while on campus. Asterisk is really amazing!!!

Cons:

-One needs to be dedicated to make it work

Small Business Phone System

Comments: We use this everyday for our phones. We test a variety of platforms on a regular basis, but we have always stuck with Asterisk because it does everything we need.

Pros:

Asterisk has nearly everything you would need in a phone system for a small business. With some technical knowledge you can get the free version of this and do everything yourself with very minor costs to your bottom line.

Cons:

The learning curve on Asterisk systems is steep. If you want to do anything custom, you will pretty much have to hire someone to do it for you unless you have a lot of experience and technical knowledge. Much of this can be overcome by using a GUI such as FreePBX.

"A solid base for phone systems"

Pros:

I've worked with Asterisk for a long time and believe it's a solid phone system platform. The system is straightforward and simple to comprehend. I also like that it's open source, which means we can get a lot of help from the community.

Cons:

It entails a number of severe security threats. and We don't obtain the complete event of Outdial parameters in the Asterisk manager interface layer. need to keep an eye out for a variety of activities

If you spend enough time with it it can do anything

Comments: It works for what we do.

Pros:

The amount of features that you can get with this software is astounding. If you have the time and the know how you can make this software do it. We use it every day. We have about 35 techs answering calls It will run on just about any computer that you have.

Cons:

It is very complex. Like all things in the Linux world it is difficult to setup the first time you use it. It is very difficult when you want to change hardware or make system level changes.

Great application for voip service for small companies

Comments: is a good application for provide viop services to small companies.

Pros:

is Free and it's works on Linux environments, is stable and the last versions have a more friendly interface for managements Roles. there always you can find new updates available to fix bugs.

Cons:

Very Difficult to configure the services and is hard to maintain the security of the application without extra security applications or hardware.

Awesome and fast learning from the comunity information

Comments: All my voip implementations are based on asterisk as well

Pros:

Open source code, available in to many versions, constant upgrading for the comunity, perfect SIP adaptable configurations, to many features and modules.

Cons:

Hard installation and configuration, some bugs are not resolved at all in sip trunking, codec, an others, at least to the version 11, but now on the version 13+ there are more good stuff

Asterisk is the standard as a free and open-source PBX but use packaged distributions

Comments: This is my go-to choice for larger deployments but a packaged version with extras and IT support staff are both necessary for successful deployments. For small organizations without trained Asterisk IT support staff, a hosted solution is better.

Pros:

The product has a very long history (20+ years). I was using it back in the early 2000s writing my own AEL scripts to write call flows. However, while it is full featured, it has no built-in GUI, either for admins or users. Using a package like FreePBX is essential for business deployments.

Cons:

No administration tools, no user interface, lack of commonly needed extensions like phone handset management and voicemail.

Asterisk is the only solution for self-hosted VoIP PBX’s in this day and age.

Comments: Flawless product, actively being developed and since being purchased by Sangoma will continue to be the Industry Leader in VoIP PBX Solutions.

Pros:

It works. The software does exactly what it advertises it will do. Combine it with a powerful front end such as Sangoma’s Freepbx and you have a complete system which is ready to deploy in minutes.

Cons:

Lack of native GUI interface for end users. As stated about what I like, it is easily paired with Freepbx to achieve this goal but freepbx limits the capability of Asterisk somewhat.

Simply the best

Pros:

This is the BEST VOIP software you can use. First of all its a free base. It has so many features that are amazing for small and large business setups. You can buy really cheap analog lines and hook up to this system. And just use your own phones. It saves 1000's of dollars each year from competitive voip systems.

Cons:

The software can be buggy when first setting up and interfacing cards. It works great but if you are not familiar with command promp you will not be fully able to set it up.

It’s a beast… but you need someone to tame it

Pros:

It’s infinitely customizable, and the price is right!

Cons:

Dial plan is a convoluted and pretty wonky language for feature development

AsteriskNow

Pros:

Easy and cheapest way to setup a VoIP system. Used this product for more than 12 years. There was number of versions during this time. Very reliable and the system can even work as a Windows VM. Since the UI is user friendly and heavily customizable, this is a very good product for small/medium size business.

Cons:

I would like to see an option for the end user to select what they need while installing the distro instead of ISO installing everything.

Why pay for a PBX when this is free?

Comments: I have setup and managed many asterisk installs for various use cases and love working with it, all be it I'm very familiar by now but it's not difficult to get the hang of it. Best solution for an in-house PBX should you have the ability to manage and maintain it.

Pros:

asterisk is a reliable and versatile PBX / IP-PBX. There are many great UI's to make management even easier and the open-source nature allows you to customize scripts and telephony applications to individual needs. I can't make an argument to pay for a commercial software unless some type of included support is paramount.

Cons:

There are a lot of components to this application which can make standardizing versions a bit complicated. There are pre-made packages available for install which are stabilized so I recommend one of them (asteriskNOW or FreepBX for example) for anyone just starting out.

An useful telephone interface for your workplace!

Comments: We have an organization with 1000 employees and Asterisk have been great for connecting all the offices. We have used it for years and it is a very reliable software.

Pros:

I like that this software can be used for video conferences, automatic call distribution and it can be sustained on VoIP. It has been really useful over the years.

Cons:

I don't have any complain on it. This has been an amazing software so far.

A very good alternative to replace IP phone Systems

Comments: We could implement a proper alternative to the CISCO IP phone system,using Asterix. Asterix is a good platform in order to run the VOIP and its very affordable, efficient and flexible platform.Asterix save the space of the hardware,because it doesn't require extra hardware.

Pros:

I was supposed to find an alternative to the CISCO IP Phone system.Then I found this amazing software and implemented it in a Linux environment.After configurations, I could complete the required system.The implemented system doesn't require any kind of extra hardware to VOIP and also It has support for three-way calling. Those are the facts i most liked in implementing Asterix and it supports both Linux and BSD operating systems.

Cons:

When I implementing my system.I could study several implementations and references.But there are no complete updated guide books,videos,references.In order to do a small implementation we have to find more tutorials and guidance.It costs more time.Unavailability of a proper documentations and references than other opensource platforms, is a considerable matter.

Great open source PBX

Comments: Really good, I've seen several deployments of Asterisks and they work smooth silk.

Pros:

The openness of the system and ability to create so many solutions based on this little piece of software. It is a great foundation for creating a telecommunication solution for yourself.

Cons:

If creating apps using Asterisk you need to know deep knowledge of the solution, this is a software that is for skilled people to use and create, which is not bad, it is just what you have to expect.

I use asterisk daily at work since I administer several ip centrals

Comments: very stable voip system

Pros:

It is a very stable and practical voice over ip system, you can integrate it with practically any system and the functionality is perfect

Cons:

the system of pure voip asterisk, has several points against it since it is unfriendly for the end user, in this case for call center agents

VoIP in business class

Pros:

Asterisk is a reference in its domain. OpenSource, free, a lot of features. It became an industry standard and provide certification and a real user support / community support

Cons:

You need to know what you are doing, probably not easy to start.

The best free PBX on the market

Pros:

Full functioned Millions of deployments Large community to help with problems or configuring it

Cons:

Need to be careful not to leave it open to fraudulent calls As a CLI based tool it can be a bit confusing to install from the tgz

Fortget analog and digital PBXs, it is IPPBX

Comments: I am very happy with the Asterisk. It has been years and working very stable. It does not need to be updated frequently. It is working...

Pros:

First of all it's free and open source. You can customize anything as you wish. It is flexible. The best PBX solution for small offices with multi locations, different dial rules, etc... All of my colleagues started working from home on the first day of pandemic.

Cons:

Documentation is not good enough. When you have some problem it is hard to find the solution. If you do not secure the server, huge phone traffic can pass through your server.

Lovely tool for small business

Pros:

Asterisk is a free and open source voice over IP system. It removes the need for purchasing expensive hardware. There is a large community of users around the world that will help troubleshoot and setup.

Cons:

It can be hard to setup and implement at first as the company support is not the best either.

best voip solution

Comments: by replacing the old analogic phone system PBX we reduced our communication charge by about 25% with a lot of new services like IVR

Pros:

there is a lot of linux distributions of free PBX like TRIXBOX it doesnt require à specific hardware such as phone cards

Cons:

its a little hard to find informations or support about the solution not much forums or websites or linkedin groups that offers training or support