Chilling_Silence's blogInitial thoughts on FreePBXv3 and FreeSWITCH vs Asterisk
As I’ve been testing out FreePBXv3 with FreeSWITCH, I figured I should blog my experiences, as they’ve been surprisingly pleasant!
After I got notification on the Elastix Beta mailing list about FreePBXv3, I was stoaked to learn it’s been released, even in an unfinished form! I went looking a while back for a FreeSWITCH GUI and was sadly disappointed. I found a few like tcapi and Phonebooth, but couldn’t get tcapi working and Phonebooth had just had all its code donated to FreePBX. So for the time I’d given up.
Anyway, so I grabbed the latest Install CD for FreePBXv3 which is based off CentOS. Ran through smoothly, no issues, got it installed, but I didn’t really do anything much with it.
For one reason or another I jumped into IRC in #freeswitch on freenode, I’ll have to look over my logs and figure out why. Anyway it turns out that some of the FreePBXv3 devs hang out there, and they’re actually friendly! It was a nice change from some of the other projects I’d had involvement in. I think Elastix is probably the only other project that’s been so friendly.
So I got chatting with one of the guys there, and it came up that I was happy to do some testing, so he asks me to do a clean install from a vanilla distro (And not the LiveCD. Again I’m not sure why, I’ll go re-read the chat logs later). No worries, so I install vanilla debian and get to work. Anyway a few bug reports later, 3 SVN updates later, and I’ve got a nicely working system running currently in VirtualBox.
I’m pleased to say that FreeSWITCH as a product from what I can see appears quite mature, but still growing at a steady rate. They even recommend you install from SVN, they’re that confident in the code. Most projects would have you install from a “stable” peg in the code and update as & when they release a new “final” version. The first and most obvious thing I’ve noticed about FreeSWITCH is the sounds. Even just the female voice that guides you through recording a Voicemail sounds *so* much nicer than the Asterisk one, it’s absolutely crazy! There’s also the nice feature that Voicemail automatically stops recording when you’re silent for 2 seconds. Quite cool I thought!
There was no “additional” configuration of any endpoints that I needed to do, tested with ZoIPer and an SPA942 successfully. It simply “just worked” making calls between the devices, as was to be expected. I’m still yet to setup an external trunk to test over.
FreePBXv3 is still a *little* rough around the edges, but overall I must say that the infrastructure that they’ve built, or framework, seems like a great improvement over the current FreePBX 2.X! Not only that, but the developers are very approachable, keen for feedback, they seem to be excellent coders who love doing what they do, and they’re rapidly pumping out an awesome project! It still crashes at times, or at least doesn’t display what it should, however the changes seem to get saved at least even though the correct followup output isn’t shown. Some features aren’t 100% implemented, but overall there’s most of the basic things in there that the majority of people would use. The developers also seemed pretty keen for suggestions and improvements, even just the trivial little things.
I’m just looking forward to trying this out on an Alix system soon to see how it handles the load from FreeSWITCH 😀
the freeswitch irc channel is on freenode, not internode, just a quick FYI
Hey Raymond,
Thanks for that, a bit of an oversight on my behalf. I should really re-read things when posting them. Serves me right for doing so first thing at the crack of dawn prior to a business meeting. All fixed now, cheers.
Thanks for this great write-up!
It’s really appreciated.
I couldn’t help but note that, I believe, all the bugs you’ve requested to have fixed are now fixed. We’re working hard to get this release up and running perfectly, but I believe you could use it in production at this point, since it’s just generating configs for you.
Hope it continues to serve you well!
Creator of FreePBX v3
It’s worth noting that FreePBX v3 *is* the TCAPI project. It’s just been renamed.
Same original author, same code base for the most part (a different framework was slipped in, but XML generation code is all from the TCAPI project).
I left TCAPI in a broken state knowing that I would be rebranding the project as FreePBX sometime last year. Sorry for any confusion it has caused.
Hi Daren, great to see you along!
TCAPI still shows up quite well in Google searches as well as other forum references, is it worth adding something to that homepage noting what you’ve just mentioned?
Yes, all the bugs I’ve mentioned have been addressed, funnily enough this blog post was found by some of the guys in #freepbx-dev only 4-5 hours after it was posted! Crazy 😀
I’ve been incredibly impressed by the rapid development that’s going on, ideas come up with, tested and implemented. I do feel sorry for some of the guys there, they’ve been given a good run for their money, and my VPS isn’t the quickest. Installing on some *real* hardware now, expect a follow-up blog soon!
Another GUI would be fusionpbx.com
Yes, that was mentioned to me in #freepbx-dev also. Looked like a nice project, and I plan on checking it out a bit more in-depth at some point. Both projects have their own intentions, specifics, pros & cons, so there’s bound to be something to suit everyone 🙂
Thanks for the info – I’ve been using freepbx for just under a year now for one of my clients, but I’m looking to install my own system shortly, so I’m looking around for all options.
The lack of GUI does not bother me at all. Actually, the GUI in freepbx kind of annoys me at times, being someone who started in a world without GUIs and vi without arrow keys, on SCO Xenix back in the 80’s. I’ve recently been trying to implement a couple of customizations on the freepbx system and have been hampered by that very same gui, combined with a total lack of documentation & “RTFM” (what “FM”s?) attitude from the volunteers on the IRC channel.
However, from an end-user perspective, keep in mind that the Flash Operator Panel does not require FreePBX or any other GUI to run – just an Apache web server. So if all you need is something for your users to connect to for an “Operator Console”, call tracker and customizable call control center, you should definitely check that out.
Hi Bob, great to hear your feedback.
Yes, I’m definitely a fan of FOP2, not so much the “look / feel” of the original FOP. I don’t know of anything yet like that for FreeSWITCH, but if you do, then I’m all ears 🙂
Well, I have an experimental FOP2 version working with FreeSwitch. It is currently good for controlling conferences and to monitor activity and not much else. But it works.
Hi Nicolás,
I’m a big fan of your work, love FOP2 🙂 Good to hear it’s already in the works. Is there a public Beta for it available at the moment?
That reminds me, I need to email you about tracking the fpbx dnd states…
I just added an active conference list and interactive conference control for FusionPBX/FreeSWITCH. Allows you to adjust gain, volume, energy, mute/unmute, deaf/undeaf, kick, record and more.
Very cool!
I really should jump on and give FusionPBX a bit of a run for its money, see how it goes vs FreePBXv3 etc 🙂 It’s definitely great to see two such promising GUI’s being developed for FreeSWITCH IMO!
I hate fusionPBX. The main reason is that it store all config information in Database (MySQL or sqlite) and this make hard to edit any FS config file manually.
I want to try FreePBX V3 but can anyone confirm about how it handles config files ?
Thanks
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I have been running freeswitch for 2 years on a alix and its rock solid. This software and hardware combination is flawless for a soho or small office of 20 users.
Hi Damian,
That’s good to hear, I did an article a while back with Elastix running on Alix. The hardware is awesome, it’s so small and completely fanless. I tried running the FreePBXv3 GUI on it and I must admit it was a bit slow. Haven’t had a chance to test it thoroughly though, but it’s something I’d like to pursue more actively, hopefully soon. What’s the most concurrent calls you’ve loaded onto the Alix with FreeSWITCH there Damian?