Why FREE PBX isn't actually FREE!

Here's why FREE PBX isn't actually FREE! Know the facts about freepbx & asterisk voip.

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[acbennettcfi]

Been working with FreePBX a long time and love it. However, you hit the nail on the head on every point you made. Will share this video for people considering FPBX.

[tjmarx]

I got to 6:20 and couldn't listen to your BS anymore.

I literally laughed out loud when you tried to claim a SIP trunk is the same or higher price than a hosted PBX (which often still require you to get a SIP trunk separately). A SIP trunk is inexpensive. If you go for a good provider, we're talking $2 - $10 per DID.

Google voice is absolutely free. It's a full SIP trunk and DID at no cost. You do not need to use a mobile phone with it at all, you can use any computer. Everyone has a phone anyway. You don't need a data plan to use Google voice, it works the same over wifi. Everyone already has a data plan though. Those are expenses they'll incur regardless of which PBX they choose. That Google Voice adds nothing to that monthly bill means it's free.

Purchasing infrastructure is a one time cost. Any org trying to set up any kind of phone system needs to have switches, routers and modems that they have to maintain. That's baseline. But any org trying to set up a PBX is doing other activities that they're also using that network for. They already own that infrastructure before they talk about a PBX.

I mean you might as well say you need to buy handsets 🤣

In terms of having to own a server, that's total bs. The cloud pbx providers don't own their servers, they offload that to AWS, Azure or Google Cloud and so can anyone. Those providers are cheaper than going to a cloud pbx provider.

However by self hosting you also have the *OPTION* of purchasing your own hardware and hosting on site. That's a one of fee for hardware that can be utilised for multiple functions not just the phone system. I have 50 ext running off a consumer Intel i3 from the 2000 series and 8gb of ram. It uses so few system resources I'm able to have that system pull other duties.

Seriously, come on. You're reaching for straws because people want to use something that competes with the products you sell, that is far more competitive.

FreePBX isn't overly complicated. Neither is 3CX. We are all dumber for having watched this convoluted nonsense you're spinning

[tkteun]

It might not be free as in beer, but it definitely is free as in speech. FreePBX has had some iterations in the past 15 years, but it's still readily available. I don't want to know how many hosted solutions have closed in that time. It's definitely higher maintenance than an old analogue PBX but for sites that are already running on premise stuff an extra VM doesn't hurt that badly. Also, in Europe, operators get paid for termination, so a trunk is often cheaper than a hosted PBX solution.

[jackkraken]

I think the bottomline is that if your company or the company you work for has a dedicated IT staff who can learn how to manage and use FreePBX then it might make sense, but unfortunately I have heard and seen with my own eyes a trend of companies outsourcing their IT work to others who might or might not be able to handle the workload of the IT needs of the company and having a physical device that needs to be maintained can be seen as an additional burden for those companies. Not only that but I have heard from colleagues how they try to nickel and dime everything about the system to the point of not buying spare phones and not buying UPS equipment to deal with power outages. In that kind of environments an on prem PBX sounds like a nightmare.

[IvanITpro]

Thx Rich! As an IT professional, my first side job was to setup a hair salon and spa with 12 Polycom phones on a FreePBX on a Raspberry Pi 3... You might laugh, but it totally handles 4-5 simultaneous calls with no problem, probably even more but they don't make that many... As far as maintenance goes... I log into their network remotely once/twice a year for about 10 minutes to update and restart FreePBX... otherwise it's been running with no issues for 3 years now... with a business bill of about $30/mo to Flowroute their VoIP SIP provider as opposed to $120/mo to comcast/ATT for 4 lines in the past. I think FreePBX is a great solution for small and probably even medium businesses... :) I can't agree with you that FreePBX isn't free, it is... it's the rest of the stuff, the hardware, installation and SIP provider that isn't, but that's obvious where FreePBX as an operating system / application is still free to get... Good video!

[ocalacaraudioandtint]

I have been running FreePBX for year! I agree it was and IS NOT free by any means. I left Ringcentral and learned Freepbx with lots of hard knocks along the way but was able to save thousands over the years over Ringcentral. While the company was small and I had time to dedicate to learning it was good but it is definitely not for the faint of heart.

We host on the cloud and that helps, but is an expense as you mentioned. We used to have a completely unmanaged hosted account but upgraded to a semi managed account a year or so ago and that has helped.

We still save some money but for us it is more about flexibility and at this point it is more of a hobby for me to learn new features and how to implement new things. I love a challenge LOL

FreePBX is very robust and has so much that to offer it takes forever to learn it all if you don't hire a professional

[ernestojaboneta]

I've been using FreePBX at my company for a years and the pros far outweigh the cons. However, if you don't understand that calls aren't free or you aren't tech savvy, I wouldn't recommend it. But if you can handle configuring and maintaining the system yourself, you get a lot of flexibility and functionality that's tough to get all in one anywhere else. When I need a toll free number that rings on a recorded line to a group of two phones and then rolls over to a larger back up ring group of 10 phones and then finally ends up at a voicemail box, I can have it set up in 5 minutes. Whereas with some carriers it wouldn't be possible or might take hours or days to even get close. We have hundreds of phone numbers that are associated with specific marketing campaigns so that when calls come in, we can quickly tell where they are calling from and which newspaper ad they're looking at.

[AlsoIUseArch]

err i just want 1 fxo line 2 soft sip devices, and a fax... at that scale, it is as good as free :)

[ikeepwinningeverytime]

I had freepbx running in the cloud hosted on digitalocean using their cheapest vps at the time $5 per month without issue. Hosted it for about 4 years until i no longer needed it. If you do not setup your codecs correctly to function without having to convert, the cpu overhead will be higher.

[pascaldufour]

You forgot to mention that electricity is not free. Duh!

[Ian-perj]

I use freePBX for my home office. It works for me since I only need 1 phone and I couldn’t find a hosted provider that would work with just 1 phone that also didn’t have long contract terms. I also already own the networking hardware and servers to run the VM so it made sense for me to use it. The monthly SIP trunk costs me less then what Grasshopper charges per month.

[WebGuyTV]

Does literally ANYONE not understand that the dial tone service and the ability to make calls is an ongoing monthly EXPENSE?

Dude... who is this video aimed at? People with the understanding of a 4-year-old? Nobody thinks FreePBX means you can make free calls. Do they?

Where are these stupid people?

[MargateFL]

Very informative, thanks for the heads up.

[vampirelordredfang]

How about if you are teck savvy and you love servers and you just want voip as your home land line incase would that be enough?

[ralph]

when talking about professionals if they do this on their spare time they are learning and becoming valuable and learning to NOT depend on others. Plus then becoming your competitor. Then we got self hosters. Is electricity pricey? Yes. Is my time valuable? Yes. Knowing if I host my own equipment I OWN my own data and don't have to fund companies that dislike me. Priceless. No fear of being cancelled. Then repeating the same process to other friends and family to avoid having to pay for big tech. Big Tech is free because your the payment. They track you and use it for their algorithms to make them money. I would ask my friends who do you trust Big Tech with your DATA or my Privacy policy of "Don't want to look, search or keep tabs on you unless you broke the law and the Cops sent me a letter"

[brionlund]

You can sell your products, but don't lie about competing offerings. I use digital ocean to serve my pbx. I have my own servers, but I use digital oceans servers for my pbx in the case of an outage at my office, and serving my self hosted pbx costs me a grand total of $6/month and was super easy to configure. I also use callcentric as a sip trunk which costs me a grand total of $28 for unlimited calling, so while you're right, free pbx is not free, you're making up a bunch of requirements and costs that just dont exist. You do not have to own your infrastructure. If the minimum monthly cost of what you offer can meet that $28/month for a single line, and call waiting with unlimited extensions, then sell away, but owning your pbx is more than just about cost. Its the control. It's the lack of contractual agreements, and you certainly dont have to shell out thousands of dollars to get a working phone line.

[zajactom]

Its a pity that you do not understand the meaning of the Free PBX, as it is not free in terms of paying for it, but mostly is as a free choice of hardware and software that not only runs the PBX but also what you can connect to it, and in this matter you may connect whatever sip or VoIP phone or hardware, as long as adheres to voip and sip standards.

There are plenty solutions there that are proprietary solutions that not only lock you down to their service but also to theirs hardware, forcing you to use only their solutions and hardware, and this monopoly is limiting your choice and ability. And the longer you stay with them then more difficult will be to break off from them.

FreePBX is based on open source solution called Asterisk. And FreePBX is just one of many GUI solutions that helps to manage PBX by using graphical solutions that is based on websites/web pages, otherwise you will have to manually manage and configure by editing hundreds of files by hand in terminal etc. There are other GUI solutions for Asterisk, some of them are totally free with all modules and features, some of them have basic community versions but fully functional, and for some you have to pay. Your complaints about lack of support and costs are completely out of place and no logic is there.

FreePBX as any project based on open source is making money not by selling the (Free)PBX but for support and knowledge that they have, and solutions they developed to make it easier to use for others. as well as hardware that is easier to deploy with their (Free)PBX. So they use other avenues of revenue then traditional commerce... You are free to educate your self in Asterisk and FreePBX, and open your own business by offering your skills and knowledge to those who need it. And as a business you do not have to fork top dollars for proprietary solutions and be a representative etc. Just master the platform and you good to open your own consultancy and service business.

All the costs for support or hardware exist regardless what PBX you are using. The difference is that with solutions based on open source like Asterisk you may choose the hardware that suits not only your needs but foremost your pocket, and as for support you may choose from many business that do provide support for Asterisk and FreePBX etc.

Complaining that when hosting PBX locally you need switches, routers and network infrastructure is completely funny at best... so you suggesting that choosing cloud solutions for PBX will not require network and network devices? In other words you use magic to access internet and internet resources in your office\company? I think otherwise, even with paid PBX - cloud solutions or otherwise - you will need to have some network infrastructure and as such you will need maintain that network regardless its size and complexity. So this and your other arguments are terribly misleading.
Also fun fact... PBX is not telco service, meaning does not gives you the phone number and line that you can use. PBX in old times was a hub where all phone wires were meeting at the dashboard where a person was manually connecting\routing calls to end users by switching plugs... and connecting internal phones within their company.... So in other words it was a privet and internal phone network with ability to be connect to the outside company network....
and this days we achieve this by using digital version on our computers to do this work.... So again, your example that FreePBX needs additional service, like phone line and valid subscription etc. and other (paid) don't . is misleading in many terms... even your cloud solutions needs phone subscription... and any PBX will need a gateway if you wish to make phone calls outside your privet network. You cant avoid this... huge difference is that when having cloud/online solutions, you pay for a packet that incudes all sort of things, including PBX, By using solution like FreePBX you taking this cost out of the picture... because you do not pay for PBX, and if you have phone line already you may use that to build your internal phone system that will utilize that line etc.

There are plenty benefits when using solution like FreePBX, and they do lower your cost and make very affordable as professional solutions for your internal phone system. You can tailor the system whatever way you need and wish.

Nobody should be discourage from using FreePBX and alike solutions.

You can setup system yourself, or hire someone to either help you with set up or do it for you entirely... and lets be honest, even your paid solutions most likely are based on Asterisk any way....

There are schools that may benefit from hosted (paid) solutions but there plenty more that cant afford it. They all have the same needs but not the budget. But even schools that can afford should really think twice before spending money as they can make savings and put saved money elsewhere. You can't lock yourself using open source solutions like FreePBX. Hardware is reusable even with paid proprietary solutions, and if you do not like FreePBX you can always choose other PBX solutions.

In my opinion school that you talking about in your video was unlucky to get advice regarding their system and solution they where using, which it was not bad just because they use product that has "Free" in the title yet they have to pay for some other things. They simply have been misinformed about what FreePBX is and how they can benefit from it, and even if their system was broken somehow it is relatively easy to start and rebuild the system from scratch... and if there where other issues like unstable or insufficient network infrastructure they should know about it as this will be haunting them regardless their PBX solution...

But I do understand that for many companies is easier and more profitable to slander customer current system by using scare tactics and unjust comparison to present their alternative as so simple solutions that sounds almost like godsend.

For all those schools and other organizations - do not give up - Google it and find real consultant that will work for your benefit.... find other communities that where successful and ask for help... together we all benefit at the end :-)

[DominickWalenczak]

Must say I emphatically disagree. Going with on premesis is, by far, the cheaper and better option as compared to hosted. FreePBX is pretty easy to install and maintain. There is little time needed to set it up. All of your arguments strike me as disingenuous. "expensive" hardware to run it? Any old decomissioned workstation is more than powerful enough. Heck, I've run it off Raspberry Pi. Hosted only makes sense for those who dont have the basic skills to initially set up an on premesis setup.

[jeffreydeleon]

I JUST DONT GET YOUR POINT.
THE SERVICE WILL NEVER BE FREE. WHY DO YOU THINK THAT A CLOUD SOLUTION WILL BE BETTER (NO CHEAPER).

[EagleMitch]

So what this really is is a rant against on-prem services. Excellent. Thanks for steamrolling FreePBX vs any other PBX. What the title should be is "Why I think hosted phone systems will make my business more money." FreePBX can be deployed on almost any hardware. I have see it installed on cheap workstations, VoIP uses very little bandwidth and runs on Linux so it is very light. You are just trying to scare businesses in to a recurring monthly fee. Our FreePBX solution with Yealink phones cost per extension was FAR less than ANY of the hosted solutions we were presented with. Hardware has very little profit margin these days so you are losing your ass on it and would rather sell a subscription service to keep food on your table. We get it. Don't screw people over with your raggedy ass sales pitch.