SOLVED Asterisk vs FreeSwitch
- Thread starter John
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Honestly, what has been a big blocker for us is the lack of a cohesive client experience. Is FusionPBX had a cross-platform client like 3CX does, I don't think we'd end up selling many 3CXs at all. 3CX does win out here no matter what client you use for FusionPBX, because it also creates a little VPN tunnel to avoid NAT shenanigans that are ever so common otherwise.
Utilising SIP clients is just a painful experience, as none of them are the same on across platforms. Either that, or they're just incredibly stinky and have adverts, or require manual provisioning. Shared address books are usually out of the question, and we can't give amazing GPO/MDM policies to clients to implement. Then also other features like DND/Forwarding. Also, because many SIP clients implement a STUN/ICE/SIP Proxy thing, usually cloud hosted they're often never free to use.
We use Counterpath Enterprise and their Stretto provisioning server: https://www.counterpath.com/stretto-platform/ .
It's obviously not free but it has all the bells and whistles in a cross platform product and the Stretto provisioning server is multi tenant. You basically set up an extension in fusion, pop in the credentials in the Stretto server and an email goes out to your client with download options. When they log into the app their credentials/setup follow them automatically.
If you can scale it out to a couple hundred users it becomes affordable..
There is also the SessionTalk fusionpbx-app that you can install as a separate addon, here you will find the pricing
Note: there is a bug in the app, somebody changed the parent_uuid so now the app is outside the Applications subdir (I have submitted a pull request to fix it)
We use Bria Enterprise for a softphone app and it really blows away anything from 3CX or VitalPBX. We also use Queuemetrics for call centre reporting and dashboards and again that blows away anything from 3CX or VitalPBX.
VitalPBX as far as im aware isn't open source and from what I've read on the forums while it is multi-tenant not all features are multi-tenant capable because that's not how Asterisk was developed. Also you are looking at 5k for 100 tenants with VitalPBX then you have all the different modules such as Fax and I read if you buy some of the modules they are not multi-tenant capable and you need to buy a module for each tenant. Im far from an expert on VitalPBX but that's what I've read.
I'd also be interested is Asterisk add-on's like Queuemetrics and some of the CRM integrations developed for Asterisk work with VitalPBX. My guess is no they won't not in multi-tenant mode anyway.
VitalPBX as far as im aware isn't open source and from what I've read on the forums while it is multi-tenant not all features are multi-tenant capable because that's not how Asterisk was developed. Also you are looking at 5k for 100 tenants with VitalPBX then you have all the different modules such as Fax and I read if you buy some of the modules they are not multi-tenant capable and you need to buy a module for each tenant. Im far from an expert on VitalPBX but that's what I've read.
I'd also be interested is Asterisk add-on's like Queuemetrics and some of the CRM integrations developed for Asterisk work with VitalPBX. My guess is no they won't not in multi-tenant mode anyway.
It's $125/month and unlimited tenants is included. Also, most of us have already spent thousands of dollars in pre-membership FusionPBX training, not even getting the API and still paying $100/month. API is also included in VitalPBX packages.
Again, my reason for this thread was to know about how Asterisk doing vs FreeSwitch in 2021. Otherwise, VitalPBX is a clear winner against any FreeSwitch GUI by far. However, if the underlying engine asterisk is not as good as FreeSwitch, that would be like buying a Lamborghini with a TATA engine.
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Oh I have run into the NAT issue. My static IP for my Firewall/Router is on the same subnet as the the other four IP addresses. Whenever I try to run my FusionPBX/Freeswitch box on one of the static IPs, I can register sip clients from behind my firewall as usual but the registrations do not show the the usual registered tls-nat with or without TLS they do not show nat, outgoing calls work mostly but I remember it too being spotty, but incoming calls make it as far as the ring group but the registered extensions kick it's ass and it stops there. For a stopgap I kept my old Microwave Internet connection that my Fiber Optic replaced as my main connection so I have my server running on one of the statics on the microwave link, the trouble is that while it works the microwave link costs more than my 500gbs business fiber optic including the 5 ip addys I pay for whereas the microwave link is not charging me for the 5 addresses because they have way more than enough in my area, even so it's 20 dollars a month more and it is 30mbs in both directions. I could go to a slower tier on the microwave but what I am doing is a silly thing just to be able to run a sip server.
Your comment on 3cx really jumped out at me because when I lived in another state and had fiber and statics it was the same problem. At that time I gave up and went back to my VPS at a datacenter. Using a VPN also worked but I use a domain and need a fixed IP to make it work right. Does the built in VPN for 3CX go to their servers automatically? I had not played with 3CX in a while but for a single user the free version is plenty. I doubt Frontier would give me 5 statics spread over different subnets. When I did not have static IP addresses, I put my adsl modem in bridge mode as usual to use my own firewall/router but put it on a switch because often ADSL that is DHCP will allow up to a few different addresses at one and I use a DynDNS client in the sip server. The ip address for my wan and the one for my sip server would up being on different subnets so it worked with no issue but was a pain since I was using DHCP addresses and had no business running a server on it. If the ip changes even with DynDNS the propagation is not always instant. VPN is the only thing I have tried that solves this issue with static IPs on the same subnet. My email server which with webmail suites uses too much resources for a 6 dollar VPS so good hardware and with an email server on the same subnet as my wan on my firewall it doesn't care. I like bare metal for email because of ram and storage space plus things like fail2ban and barracuda and spamhaus linked to postfix., Sogo which uses a lot of ram and Roundcube as well. The webmail stuff uses far more resources than a simple IMAP and SMTP server but I digress.
It's built into the client, so when you provision a softphone it is actually creating a '3CX Tunnel' to the 3CX Server in question. Similarly, if you have some handsets that are playing silly buggers behind NAT or you need hot desking, you can install a little 3CX SBC which create a tunnel back to the 3CX on the LAN, that all the handsets can use.
It all makes sense as to why 3CX went this way too, you only have to look at this forum and there's hundreds of posts about people not doing NAT correctly.
I want to jump in on this discussion if I can as well. I know some time ago someone was talking about 2600Hz Kazoo; I don't know if anyone has looked at that since then. It is Freeswitch at its core I believe. The install looks like much more of a bear than FusionPBX though.
As much as I do love FusionPBX, I get worried Mark isn't entirely sure which direction to take the company/product. Offering support hours in blocks tied to the membership tiers that also includes features is likely biting him in the butt, although I couldn't say for sure, just how it seems.
On a positive note the site is PBXForums, not FusionPBXForums, so there is that.
Also if at any point @DigitalDaz has problems with hosting fees, I'm sure any one of a number of people would help to keep this thing up and running. I agree it is an irreplaceable resource ultimately. Sometimes maybe you sign that first client without being fully ready, and something like this forum helps make it happen.
Not sure I'd have ever gotten FusionPBX running without this forum.
As much as I do love FusionPBX, I get worried Mark isn't entirely sure which direction to take the company/product. Offering support hours in blocks tied to the membership tiers that also includes features is likely biting him in the butt, although I couldn't say for sure, just how it seems.
On a positive note the site is PBXForums, not FusionPBXForums, so there is that.
Also if at any point @DigitalDaz has problems with hosting fees, I'm sure any one of a number of people would help to keep this thing up and running. I agree it is an irreplaceable resource ultimately. Sometimes maybe you sign that first client without being fully ready, and something like this forum helps make it happen.
Not sure I'd have ever gotten FusionPBX running without this forum.
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I like your sense of humor. It made me laugh. I think he has a few top tier membership keeping him busy and is giving him the ability to keep it going. On the negative side, they make him too busy to respond to other minor players' needs and release a stable version for years. Or maybe it is the large players' wish to keep us as minor players, so we do not get important features like SMS and WebRTC. Who knows!
I am just happy that I finally have a plan B, which is VitalPBX.
I have had 15 years experience with Asterisk and 10 with FreeSWITCH. Near FreeSWITCH 1.0 release they were cranking out excellent features left and right and blowing the socks off Asterisk with performance. Things are different these days. Asterisk with PJSIP is excellent, has a better WebRTC implementation than FreeSWITCH, and performs well. I pick the platform I want to use based on features. For me it's FreeSWITCH for video MCU (Asterisk does not have it) and for domain-based multi-tenant. Asterisk otherwise.
My experience with support on the two platforms has been significantly different. With Asterisk and its FreePBX GUI I have gotten excellent support writing to developers and participating in forums. The wikis are also generally comprehensive and up to date. Unfortunately my experience with FreeSWITCH and FusionPBX has been different. Thus I tend to use Asterisk unless I know with certainty that FreeSWITCH will solve the problem in a better way and I probably won't need any support.
My experience with support on the two platforms has been significantly different. With Asterisk and its FreePBX GUI I have gotten excellent support writing to developers and participating in forums. The wikis are also generally comprehensive and up to date. Unfortunately my experience with FreeSWITCH and FusionPBX has been different. Thus I tend to use Asterisk unless I know with certainty that FreeSWITCH will solve the problem in a better way and I probably won't need any support.
Whats the pricing like for the Vodia system?To throw in another option I also been messing around with is Vodia PBX.
It is also multi tenant, you pay per extension (prices vary on the type of extension) and its great for Hotels that require integration with PMS (property management software)
Edit: it is neither Asterisk nor FreeSwitch, it is its own beast (and its a single executable "pbxctrl" that runs on many platforms
That actually doesn't seem too bad. Have you used their platform?
No I have not used the platform but I did install it on raspberry pi and test it out briefly, I wanted to see how the web interface looked and what phones were supported by the endpoint manager. Installation is a breeze, its a single executable and a zip archive with sounds, its not bad.
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We used to manage it back when it was PBXnSIP. This was what was unbelievably great about it, back then it was just a simple folder we could just move about at will. It made backup and restoration such a breeze.
I want to be somewhat involved in this regard,
I work with Asterisk for about 10 years. And I've been using Freeswitch for 2 years, 6-7 months FusionPBX.
There are plus and cons for both systems,
If you want a multitenant system on the PBX user side, and if you get these open source, fusion is very successful on it.
In the current use, there are 500 concurrent call traffic streams in Peak Time. And Fusion is working on ESX. And no problem. Very stable.
When using conference with Asterisk / FreePBX, problems are starting while there are 250 Concurrent Call. And this has a limit.
In addition, the outgoing fax in the Asterisk is generally trouble.
I think Freeswitch is more successful as PBX.
I'm using Asterisk on ivr for CallingCard system. And 2k concurrent call can pass very comfortable.
In summary, both are very good. Should only work in the right place in topology.
Only test more. And try
I work with Asterisk for about 10 years. And I've been using Freeswitch for 2 years, 6-7 months FusionPBX.
There are plus and cons for both systems,
If you want a multitenant system on the PBX user side, and if you get these open source, fusion is very successful on it.
In the current use, there are 500 concurrent call traffic streams in Peak Time. And Fusion is working on ESX. And no problem. Very stable.
When using conference with Asterisk / FreePBX, problems are starting while there are 250 Concurrent Call. And this has a limit.
In addition, the outgoing fax in the Asterisk is generally trouble.
I think Freeswitch is more successful as PBX.
I'm using Asterisk on ivr for CallingCard system. And 2k concurrent call can pass very comfortable.
In summary, both are very good. Should only work in the right place in topology.
Only test more. And try
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