The concern I've seen here is that pjsip isn't quite ready to take over for chan_sip. As an example, BLF keys don't work correctly, at least on Grandstream phones.. This is resolved if I move to chan_sip, and BLF seems like pretty basic functionality.
VitalPBX - More serious evaluation
- Thread starter DigitalDaz
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Have you done any research into Thirdlane? Thoughts if yes? It has a lot of features that were lacking in Fusionpbx. SMS being one of them. Reason I ask, is because we are testing it.
It's more like VirtalPBX in the closed source aspect. But uses Asterisk instead of freeswitch. Looks like they are leaning more towards that UC vs pbx aspect. Multi-tenant.
We demo'd Thirlane years ago but ultimately dumped it because it was closed source. It sort of always comes back to being able to look under the hood and diagnose problems. I'm sure the product has evolved though since we tried it.
There's also Bicom Systems as well.
The thing with Thirdlane, Bicom & Vodia is you are paying for their software, softphone and call centre dashboard etc.
With FusionPBX you can add on the best of breed softphone and call centre software like queuemetrics, CRM integration and you'll likely come in at the same cost base as a paid platform and likely a much better solution. Personally I won't be touching any of those systems, down the track I may look something a level above those such as Netsapiens.
The thing with Thirdlane, Bicom & Vodia is you are paying for their software, softphone and call centre dashboard etc.
With FusionPBX you can add on the best of breed softphone and call centre software like queuemetrics, CRM integration and you'll likely come in at the same cost base as a paid platform and likely a much better solution. Personally I won't be touching any of those systems, down the track I may look something a level above those such as Netsapiens.
Found this with the MT module. *A Maximum of 100 tenants is recommended per server. More than this and we cannot guarantee stability. Doesn't seem to scale much.
@DigitalDaz
Just getting started with Fusion, as I am looking to move away from FreePBX installs. I have quite a few of them and love the concept of multi-tenant. Curious if your opinion has changed in the past 6 months on Fusion?
Just getting started with Fusion, as I am looking to move away from FreePBX installs. I have quite a few of them and love the concept of multi-tenant. Curious if your opinion has changed in the past 6 months on Fusion?
I'm firmly back in the fusionpbx camp.
I actually work a lot now with some commercial PBXs and the more I use them the more I dislike them.
There is nothing that matches opens source.
At the end of the day, fusionpbx can do anything I want. It may not currently be able to do it but that's just limited to my skillset, money and the developers priorities.
With fusionpbx we have options, with commercial products we just get the black box.
Another thing is price. With a commercial option, we have a price now but this could be much different in the future. This effectively means a third party company ends up dictating what I charge my clients and I just don't like that idea.
I actually work a lot now with some commercial PBXs and the more I use them the more I dislike them.
There is nothing that matches opens source.
At the end of the day, fusionpbx can do anything I want. It may not currently be able to do it but that's just limited to my skillset, money and the developers priorities.
With fusionpbx we have options, with commercial products we just get the black box.
Another thing is price. With a commercial option, we have a price now but this could be much different in the future. This effectively means a third party company ends up dictating what I charge my clients and I just don't like that idea.
Oh, and another thing that doesn't really get a mention: reliability. Once you have fusionpbx up and running and you don't mess with it, it will just run for years and years. Freeswitch is super stable.
I was evaluating some other options and at this point I think I am continuing with Fusion. It's really difficult when you have to pay a per feature per user per month fee. Things add up quickly and that $20 basic plan I hoped to offer now cost me not only in hosting but also these software fees.
I largely agree with DigitalDaz, open source is the key, then you can't be held to ransom. It is a shame that FusionPBX has deviated from the open source route with it's member only applications.
We are experimenting with our own GUI wrap around FreeSWITCH, it's not difficult, the only problem is, when your write it your self you have to maintain it!
We are experimenting with our own GUI wrap around FreeSWITCH, it's not difficult, the only problem is, when your write it your self you have to maintain it!
Response
If you combine FusionPBX source and the member add-ons source code by file size you will get less than 2.3%. Currently 4 member features have been open sourced so far. More will be open sourced soon.
@Adrian Fretwell Have you open sourced every bit of your code for the last 12 years?
Response
You will be surprised how much work it is to build, maintain, and support. If you go ahead and do it it. Then it would be interesting to talk to you 5 to 10 years from now and see what you think after you have experienced it for an extended period of time.
- Users will need a lot of features you never considered and some you don't like.
- The code debt will continue to increase year after year.
- You will have less and less time to work on your hosting business.
- How long will you be willing to do the expanded workload?
FusionPBX Official Release
FusionPBX 5.0 was released in April 2022.
Member Model
The member model was started as a sustainability model. It provides a little incentive for supporting the project. It has actually helped produce and maintain more open source code than would have been possible without this model this means a net gain. It has helped to sponsor the project and produced more open source cod and many improvements and bug fixes.
New Upcoming Release
We are going to release more regularly and more often. FusionPBX version 5.1 will be released with more features in a few months.
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Adrian, super shocked to hear you say that because you seem like a logical person with a light dev background of some type you would think that of all people on here you would understand how stupid this comment sounds and it is comments like this that really drive people away from creating such amazing open source products..... you and/or your team are making your own GUI to wrap around feeswitch? Even if you disliked somethings or wanted to change stuff, why wouldn't you just fork the project, why would you start from ground up? Also you said "we", so you have a team working on this? This is an insane project to start from scratch and create something more than what mark has, you would rather devote all that time and resources than pay mark $500 a month.... lol, Good luck and then what, a decade from now when your done your going to release and support it 100% for free? Literally I have requested features and Mark hops on the phone with me and will live edit his source code, test and push the updated feature out all while im on the phone with him.... He goes so far above and beyond it makes you wonder if he is crazy. I literally use the time I save from having Mark managing all the technical stuff to landing more contracts and it pays for itself. I mean what if you gave mark his $500 and you used your team and resources on better marketing, sales and networking events, lol like it makes 0 sense to me why anyone would take this stance. I mean imagine just 1/4 of fusion users gave mark the base $100/ month, imagine how amazing he could make the product with those resources, but no he gives it away for free and has to deal with people constantly coming at him for advanced features and extended support but don't want to pay. If I was giving out strawberry lollipops, are you going to come up to me and complain that I should have lime, and watermellon, or complain that is to hard or to soft or the stick should be plastic? or would you just take it say thank you or say no thank you and move on?
Fusionpbx is open source!..... you can easily use a 20 year old laptop, raspberry pi or a $10 VPS and install debian, run 3 commands and have a fully functional VoIP server with multi-tenant, call center, IVR, Schedules, groups and a crap ton of other features ready to go out the box. Most of the issues people complain about on this forum are user issues or nat issue (Same IMHO). The additional features you get when you subscribe with mark are features that the general user wouldn't typically use. The features that come with the memberships are geared more towards bigger commercial/reseller setups and like most open source projects that costs money. I assume those who complain also have some sort of reference on which they are complaining against, like what other system gives you as much as fusion with its easy gui, multi-tenant and extremely granular control.
It may not be 100% perfect and yes mark can sometimes come off as rude (Mark if you read this remember I said "Sometimes", LoL), but it is a very solid product and easily the best opensource voip products I have ever used and I have even paid for 3cx, jive, 8x8, ringcentral, nextiva, freepbx and fusion smokes them all. With the blue/purple membership you will have everything you need and you will have marks ear everytime you have a problem so I don't know what others are talking about here but @int-tech01 @kanderson @bcmike @ict2842 when you ask if fusion is worth it, try to read into the responses you get because when someone says "it can't do A, B or C, So we are just going to re-invent an entirely new front end for freeswitch" is obviously butt hurt about being told "No" to something or so far out of their mind, they aren't worth listening to, which hurts me to say because typically adrian is really helpful, smart and worth listening to, but this comment about ransom and saying mark deviated from open source is just a flat out lie.
I also want to add that if anyone reading this is on the fence about fusion, your more than welcome to DM me and I will gladly get you my contact info and we can schedule a zoom/teams meeting and I can show you how I use it, what I like/dislike and how I structure things.
Maybe we don't want to use PHP.
Maybe we don't want to waste time coding and maintaining an application framework when many good ones are already available.
So what is the Ironcube installation all about then?
Mostly, but not the member Apps.
I have a lot of respect for Mark and what he has achieved, non of us would be where we are today without FusionPBX. - BUT don't become blinkered. - we are capable of building things ourselves if we have a need to do so.
I am more interested in what can be achieved with the core components like FreeSWITCH and OpenSIPS etc. I'm less interested in what FusionPBX does with these features.
I don't have the time to write "war and peace" on this subject right now, but believe me, we do have a need to do some things differently for our customers right now.
Remember we don't just pay the FusionPBX membersip, we also make donations to all the other opensource software products used in the construction of a FusionPBX installation - there are a lot of them!
@Adrian Fretwell Freedom is a good thing. I understand that starting over gives the most flexibility. Also think you need the full experience and that comes from starting from the ground up. Regardless FreeSWITCH and FusionPBX have made this much easier as a guide to learn how to get started. Several others have taken this same path ahead of you.
As far as open source for FusionPBX everything on https://github.com/fusionpbx is open source. Also the open source license that is chosen also determines how generous the creators of the project really are. Some open source licenses are less generous than others. In case it was missed here is a quote from my previous comment.
As far as open source for FusionPBX everything on https://github.com/fusionpbx is open source. Also the open source license that is chosen also determines how generous the creators of the project really are. Some open source licenses are less generous than others. In case it was missed here is a quote from my previous comment.
member applications are not part of fusion directly, when you install fusion you don't see them and they are not used and fusion is doesn't require any of them to function. They are installed and updated completely seperate to the fusionpbx. They should be thought of more as paid pluggins or "Member applications" Ubuntu is open source and works great as a general os for your basic user, but you want to use it commercially you may need some paid apps (Often paid apps developed by the ubuntu team) or maybe you need advanced support (which cost money) so, should ubuntu stop saying it is open source. Or what about wordpress?
I get what your saying in your responses to my messages, but your post from sunday used the word "Ransom" and said mark is deviating from open source and the post in general insinuated fear to others who are asking about the product, that it may not be worth the investment of time because it could just be taken away one day and yes you didn't use those exact words but it was implied. Which is wrong. I do understand what your saying now but Mark needs more people using this product so that they can become future members and provide mark with the resources to expand his team and grow his product. out the box brand new, you and I both know fusion can handle 90% of use cases easily, so as a community on a public forum I think the generic answer to this question is the product is great and the original poster should seriously consider it and try it out. Your issues and gripes seam to be specific to what you're doing and/or what your demand/objective is, but as I said 90% of what every user or company needs from a phone system in the whole word is easily and stabily achievable via fusion.
I feel like i keep going into a rant with these responses, but I just think you should have chosen your words more carefully and in posts like this I see everyone complain about everything bad and only 1 or 2 small things about what they like..... There are 100s of awesome things about this product and 1 or 2 that can be annoying is how these posts should portray the product, the people the complain the most have been using it for years and if you go all the way back you can see they complained plenty but we are all still here using aren't we? which means there are a ton more pros than cons.
So as a higher level member whos opinions and statements hold more weight then others, you should be honest and state your gripes but you should also say a lot more positive things about it because at the end of the day you know the product has way more pros than cons, otherwise you wouldn't be using it and you wouldn't be monitoring this forum. Mark is not an expert on branding and doesn't have a marketing team, or team of people to constantly defend posts like this and this forum is the #1 source for fusion information (Public facing), so if we want more out of mark lets help him brand it and sell it so he can get the resources he needs to improve it and use this forum more responsibly to properly portray the product for what it really is and not just the 1 or 2 things you find annoying or it won't do.
@Scubadave112 I feel that I must do you the courtesy of responding because you have taken the trouble to write so much.
I spend much of my time on this forum just helping others. By helping others with issues in using or getting started with FusionPBX, I am also indirectly helping the FusionPBX project. It is a great project and has many many positive benefits both to community users and Corporate users alike, no one can argue with that.
I use the word ransom as one of the potential risks with using non open source software. I speak from personal experience. Several years ago (possibly about 7 now), we bought in to a closed source system to run our PBX business. We were completely at the mercy of the suppler who eventually pulled the product from market leaving me and my customers high and dry. I vowed from that moment on wards that I would not have any closed source elements as part of my SIP platform. That is when I embraced FusionPBX with open arms.
I now only use OpenSource, and for the avoidance of doubt that means I do not use any software to which I do not have access to the source code (yes I do even keep a copy of the Linux kernel code). I am also generous in supporting OpenSource products that I use.
You ask me to be honest and clearly state my gripes. If you want to call them Gripes then I have only two. The Membership scheme, and the non open source member only applications. My reason for having these gripes are as follows, and please bear in mind that these are only my personal opinions and are not direct criticism of FusionPBX or it's business model. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and opinions can often spawn useful and constructive debate.
Gripe #1: I said above that I spend a good deal of time trying to help people, once I became a FusionPBX member, I felt restricted in the knowledge that I could share. I didn't want to be accused of passing on paid for member information, so in this sense I felt that the membership scheme was in some ways divisive. I wish we could share our education about FusionPBX more openly - I'm sure everyone would benefit in the end.
Gripe #2: Closed source member applications. I personally can't use them because I will not have any software on my platform where I cannot see the code.
So in summary I believe that my assertions made on Sunday are both true and valid; you are in full control if you use only open source and I am sad that [member] elements of FusionPBX are not open source. Playing with my own GUI wrap around FreeSWITCH is not a bad thing, it is how we learn and when we learn it puts us in a better position to help others.
FusionPBX will have my support for the foreseeable future , even if I do sometimes like to do things my own way!
Stay happy!!
I spend much of my time on this forum just helping others. By helping others with issues in using or getting started with FusionPBX, I am also indirectly helping the FusionPBX project. It is a great project and has many many positive benefits both to community users and Corporate users alike, no one can argue with that.
I use the word ransom as one of the potential risks with using non open source software. I speak from personal experience. Several years ago (possibly about 7 now), we bought in to a closed source system to run our PBX business. We were completely at the mercy of the suppler who eventually pulled the product from market leaving me and my customers high and dry. I vowed from that moment on wards that I would not have any closed source elements as part of my SIP platform. That is when I embraced FusionPBX with open arms.
I now only use OpenSource, and for the avoidance of doubt that means I do not use any software to which I do not have access to the source code (yes I do even keep a copy of the Linux kernel code). I am also generous in supporting OpenSource products that I use.
You ask me to be honest and clearly state my gripes. If you want to call them Gripes then I have only two. The Membership scheme, and the non open source member only applications. My reason for having these gripes are as follows, and please bear in mind that these are only my personal opinions and are not direct criticism of FusionPBX or it's business model. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and opinions can often spawn useful and constructive debate.
Gripe #1: I said above that I spend a good deal of time trying to help people, once I became a FusionPBX member, I felt restricted in the knowledge that I could share. I didn't want to be accused of passing on paid for member information, so in this sense I felt that the membership scheme was in some ways divisive. I wish we could share our education about FusionPBX more openly - I'm sure everyone would benefit in the end.
Gripe #2: Closed source member applications. I personally can't use them because I will not have any software on my platform where I cannot see the code.
So in summary I believe that my assertions made on Sunday are both true and valid; you are in full control if you use only open source and I am sad that [member] elements of FusionPBX are not open source. Playing with my own GUI wrap around FreeSWITCH is not a bad thing, it is how we learn and when we learn it puts us in a better position to help others.
FusionPBX will have my support for the foreseeable future , even if I do sometimes like to do things my own way!
Stay happy!!
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Well i appreciate the response and do feel like we aren't going to see eye to eye on this and we are also pushing two different agendas in our responses. I do truly get where your coming from in your gripes but I believe mark needs resources to expand and that can't happen if he gives all his fish away. This forum is a great resource to learn how to fish on your own and great resource for some tilapia, but if you want a a big blue fin tuna sometimes you need to pay a pro for his skills and time.
And for those who read this in the future, remember if you want a true valuation of the product, reach out to me directly and I will gladly give you a quality demo and a quick 30 min intro on how it all works and really help expedite the learning curve that comes with taking on something completely new.
As a side note
I can't promise anything but I have a server in my basement with 10 of those micro intel computers (I5, 8gb ram and nvidia cards) mounted inside and I used to use them for labs. I stopped using cause I have the resources now to just use VPSs and it is way more convenient. I think if I can do it right, maybe create 10 demo fusion servers, have them completely re-image every 15 days to allow a thorough demo and I have nearly 800 numbers with skyetel and im pretty sure there is about 100 or so I don't even use. I am going to try work on this project this weekend and maybe start a thread to see what suggestions everyone can make on how to best manage it. This way when every time this question comes up in future I can just give them a url, ringotel extension, DID and creds and they can just test for themselves.... This would be an extremely small expense for me and I am sure ringotel may even give me the extension free if I tell them what I am doing with it (If not I have no problem eating that), but in general I am curious if anyone thinks this would be cool and if so Ill dive deep in to seeing what is really involved tonight and maybe start a thread on the project so others can assist.
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