5 ms·

Like many of the commenters I heavily used asterisk 10 years ago. Seeing comments like “can’t believe it’s still around” leads me to believe something better c

Like many of the commenters I heavily used asterisk 10 years ago. Seeing comments like “can’t believe it’s still around” leads me to believe something better came along. Did something better come along? I’d like to play around with something new. Ps - still running my home PBX on Asterisk/FreePBX.

stevetodd 7y ago
Asterisk is still cool. I think a lot of people are now using FreeSWITCH. I have more experience with the former but using the latter more lately I am seeing the appeal. FreeSWITCH seems a little less hacked together, imho.
- xmichael999 7y ago
  Yah, I think this is the right answer. FreeSwitch is a great deal newer than asterisk and has a more logical configuration system imho. The big one is FusionPBX which is web based and runs on top of FreeSwitch - I suspect this is the main driver for do it yourself deployments these days.
  - apotatopot 7y ago
    I haven't used FreeSwitch and wanted to see a brief comparison between it and Asterisk. Here's what I found for those interested https://www.whichvoip.com/articles/freeswitch-vs-asterisk.htm https://www.whichvoip.com/articles/freeswitch-vs-asterisk.ht...
    - xellisx 7y ago
      I looked into FreeSWITCH ~5-6 years ago, while I started a complete re-write of some answering service software I had written with PHP and Asterisk back in 2007. Asterisk has the AMI (Asterisk Manager Interface), which would give me realtime information about calls, which I could use to capture all the stuff I needed and popup windows on screens and all that jazz. FreeSWITCH didn't have anything that gave me all the info I would have need to replicate that. Of course, this might have been updated since then.
      - kimi 7y ago
        Yes it has ESL now that is kind-of similar.
Scarbutt 7y ago
It has been commoditized, you can buy a cheap IP-PBX just almost like you buy a SOHO router.
linsomniac 7y ago
Phones have evolved to the point where we no longer have to make phone calls, we can instead use them to send tiny letters to each other. Nobody I know, and maybe this is self-selection, likes making phone calls. Nobody I know likes receiving phone calls. In fact, at home I never even though about hooking up a phone when I moved 5 years ago. At work, when we moved offices 3 years ago, we never even hooked up the PBX. The number one voice use I have for my cell phone is the kids' school: 3-4 times a week, one of their computers calls and usually leaves me a voicemail, which Google (badly, but good enough) translates to text. In short: They are sending me voice SMSes. :-) I loved Asterisk 20 years ago. It was insanely cool stuff. But I mostly live in a different world now.
- tjohns 7y ago
  I think this is definitely a bit of self-selection. I find phone calls are still better for conducting complex business - not everything can (or should) be scripted using a form, and a phone call sometimes is much more efficient than chat or email. Video chat would be even better in some cases, but there's no standardized infrastructure for this. And even then, outside a corporate environment that has dedicated video conferencing rooms on both ends of the call, a phone call is often simpler.
JohnBooty 7y ago
I read those comments as, "the longevity of this project is amazing!" and not "I can't believe people are still using this instead of X, Y, or Z." Less people, I think, use Asterix directly these days simply because SaaS/PaaS offerings like Twilio (which is probably built on Asterix, for all I know) cover a lot of use cases. But that's only a guess!

stevetodd 7y ago

Asterisk is still cool. I think a lot of people are now using FreeSWITCH. I have more experience with the former but using the latter more lately I am seeing the appeal. FreeSWITCH seems a little less hacked together, imho.

xmichael999 7y ago
Yah, I think this is the right answer. FreeSwitch is a great deal newer than asterisk and has a more logical configuration system imho. The big one is FusionPBX which is web based and runs on top of FreeSwitch - I suspect this is the main driver for do it yourself deployments these days.
- apotatopot 7y ago
  I haven't used FreeSwitch and wanted to see a brief comparison between it and Asterisk. Here's what I found for those interested https://www.whichvoip.com/articles/freeswitch-vs-asterisk.htm https://www.whichvoip.com/articles/freeswitch-vs-asterisk.ht...
  - xellisx 7y ago
    I looked into FreeSWITCH ~5-6 years ago, while I started a complete re-write of some answering service software I had written with PHP and Asterisk back in 2007. Asterisk has the AMI (Asterisk Manager Interface), which would give me realtime information about calls, which I could use to capture all the stuff I needed and popup windows on screens and all that jazz. FreeSWITCH didn't have anything that gave me all the info I would have need to replicate that. Of course, this might have been updated since then.
    - kimi 7y ago
      Yes it has ESL now that is kind-of similar.

Scarbutt 7y ago

It has been commoditized, you can buy a cheap IP-PBX just almost like you buy a SOHO router.

linsomniac 7y ago

Phones have evolved to the point where we no longer have to make phone calls, we can instead use them to send tiny letters to each other. Nobody I know, and maybe this is self-selection, likes making phone calls. Nobody I know likes receiving phone calls. In fact, at home I never even though about hooking up a phone when I moved 5 years ago. At work, when we moved offices 3 years ago, we never even hooked up the PBX. The number one voice use I have for my cell phone is the kids' school: 3-4 times a week, one of their computers calls and usually leaves me a voicemail, which Google (badly, but good enough) translates to text. In short: They are sending me voice SMSes. :-) I loved Asterisk 20 years ago. It was insanely cool stuff. But I mostly live in a different world now.

tjohns 7y ago
I think this is definitely a bit of self-selection. I find phone calls are still better for conducting complex business - not everything can (or should) be scripted using a form, and a phone call sometimes is much more efficient than chat or email. Video chat would be even better in some cases, but there's no standardized infrastructure for this. And even then, outside a corporate environment that has dedicated video conferencing rooms on both ends of the call, a phone call is often simpler.

JohnBooty 7y ago

I read those comments as, "the longevity of this project is amazing!" and not "I can't believe people are still using this instead of X, Y, or Z." Less people, I think, use Asterix directly these days simply because SaaS/PaaS offerings like Twilio (which is probably built on Asterix, for all I know) cover a lot of use cases. But that's only a guess!