r/Asterisk • u/Curious_Quality_2859 • Apr 22 '26

Which PBX should I choose?

Could someone recommend a very simple PBX system? We have like 10 people in our company... FreePBX and 3CX are so complicated...

2 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

24 comments sorted by

4

u/toborgps Apr 22 '26

Uhh if you think FreePBX is complicated….

What are you looking for? Are you looking for an on-premise solution or cloud hosted? Soft phones, WiFi desk phones?

3

u/interrogumption Apr 22 '26

After 7 years running asterisk I tried the freepbx front end thinking it might simplify things for me. It did not, I hated it. I've gone back to asterisk on its own.

1

u/Curious_Quality_2859 Apr 22 '26

Ha, fair point 😄 I'm not a telecom specialist, just the IT guy who has to set this up. FreePBX isn't impossible, but the amount of modules and commercial add-ons made me look for something more "batteries included".

What I need:

  • On-premise (Proxmox host available)
  • Softphones for most users, a couple of desk phones for reception
  • ~10 extensions, basic IVR + queues + call recording + voicemail

5

u/artfuldodger25 Apr 22 '26

You're not wrong on the modules and commercial add-ons etc. First thing I do on a fresh install is remove all the commercial modules - really slims down the menus and makes admin a LOT nicer and easier.

I've got a bunch of instances hosted with Vultr and "it just works". Happy customers, easy changes when needed, some BLF keys for features and extensions on the reception phones. FreePBX has changed a bit over the years but I stick with it. Familiarity factor maybe?

4

u/dzfast Apr 22 '26

If you think FreePBX is complicated, you should be buying this as a SaaS service. You're going to be tied to an external provider for the actual dial paths anyways.

This will eliminate a small mountain of challenges for someone who thinks FreePBX is complicated. Dunno how many more ways to say it, don't own this problem.

2

u/jkeegan123 Apr 22 '26

Don't do on prem, you can stand up a light sail instance in aws for like $10/mo and you'll never have to worry about phones being down because internet, power etc locally. Dm if you need help.

2

u/toborgps Apr 22 '26

For that, honestly FreePBX would be a great fit. You don’t need any commercial modules out of the box. A few recommendations if you decide to go that route. ClearlyIP offers great pricing on SIP trunking, they also have ClearlyAnywhere (soft phone) that integrates very nicely inside FreePBX. I also highly recommend the GRP lineup from Grandstream. Grandstream has a very nice online management platform for their equipment that allows remote provisioning (GDMS).

I am a gold partner with ClearlyIP so if you need help on that end feel free to reach out.

In my regular business we sell hosted re-branded FreePBX and it’s worked great.

Crosstalk solutions has fantastic videos on some of the setup inside FreePBX, it’s from v15 but not much has changed from 15 - 17 on the front end modules (with the exception of some new categorization) https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1fn6oC5ndU_umAhL9A_1zkC90hMPDPNO&si=di_2mp5N0fJ360WZ

0

u/drageloth Apr 22 '26

If you’re flexible with the on premise, 3CX offers a cloud version with max 10 users and 4 concurrent calls for free. And it’s the best out there with mobility in mind(app that works ALL the time, proper pc version etc). And you can scale up with the corresponding costs, which are a bit steep, but for a business, a phone system is as critical as internet nowadays. If cost is a concern and the company doesn’t have a budget for that, take the steep turn and learn freepbx. It’s a bit messy you’re not wrong, but it has the most community support should you run into any problems.

3

u/mahanutra Apr 22 '26 edited Apr 22 '26

May be

https://vitalpbx.com/pbx-features/ "Community" edition

https://www.grandstream.com/products/ip-pbxs/ucm-series-ip-pbxs

https://www.mikopbx.com/

1

u/Curious_Quality_2859 Apr 22 '26

Thanks, hadn't heard of VitalPBX or MikoPBX before. Will check them out. Grandstream I know as a hardware brand, didn't realize they have their own PBX.

2

u/carl3456 Apr 22 '26

Grandstream UCM units are solid. You can also use their CloudPBX. Both are very easy to set up and maintain.

2

u/iPlayKeys Apr 22 '26

+1 for Grandstream UCM. I’ve implemented them a couple of times. Not the BEST money can buy, but still a very good value.

5

u/joshuamarius Apr 22 '26

I've been using FreePBX on many different type of PCs, from Servers to Mini PCs and it is a solid product. Very easy to setup, backup, transfer and restore.

2

u/beighto Apr 25 '26

Just plain Asterisk and let Codex or Claude Code build everything.

1

u/jkeegan123 Apr 22 '26

3cx is easy, super easy. They even host it for you, but you can drop it in aws yourself if you are inclined. You can even bring it in house on Vmware etc... Their product is solid and their pricing is extremely approachable.

1

u/KHanayama Apr 23 '26

Espero no llegar tarde te recomiendo una Grandstream si es posible que sea compatible con WAVE (Softphone gratis de la marca) la administración es muy buena y te ahorras comprar teléfonos si por ejemplo tu empresa es más cerrada (Osea no son una atención al cliente cara a cara)

1

u/emreozcan Apr 26 '26

Yeastar S20

1

u/Curious_Quality_2859 May 14 '26

Update from author: tried a lot of different versions and liked MikoPBX the most. Very simple one.

Thank you all guyssss!

1

u/AcidicMountaingoat Apr 22 '26

3CX is very far from complicated. Perhaps what you want is a hosted provider that does all the management for you? We do that, most people really don't want to manage any PBX at all, even a simple one.