VitalPBX
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@scottalanmiller said in VitalPBX:
@frankengeek Yup, I'd say so. We've been pretty happy with Vital. No solution is perfect, that's for sure. But overall, it's been very good. The development certainly feels way, way ahead of FreePBX. That it is not open source is certainly a negative, but not a significant one given the type of product that it is (essentially stateless.)
They are improving. Is the GUI fancier than, and more up to date than, FreePBX? Most certainly.
Does that make it a better solution? Not at all.
There were a LOT of issues with this product when I last seriously kicked the tires in late 2019.
How much it has improved with version 3 is up in the air.
An example of my issues: https://www.mangolassi.it/topic/20529/vitalpbx-and-custom-contexts
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@jaredbusch AFAIK, the custom context module is now free.
There are a couple of points here.
In terms of the admin/user portal UI/UX, VitalPBX is hands down the winner here.
Even further, the rebranding module allows you to change your own colors, logos etc etc.
In terms of a 1 stop shop where you get a working PBC with a dashboard, queue reports, WebRTC softphone, billing portal, call recording portal all of these with just a click of a button. VitalPBX wins here again.
Personally, I was never able to get FreePBX's UCP softphone to work properly. VS VitalPBX's VitXi WebRTC works fine (it's still in Beta btw...)With that being said, like any product, it has disadvantages.
The queue reports is not as good as Asternic, for example it does not bundle multiple queues.
Portal management for end users is a nightmare, you have to create individual accounts for WebRTC, User portal, switchboard, etc etc. I hope they will release a solid SSO solution.
Multi tenant works fine, but there's very very few issues, such as, you can't set an operator extension on each tenant, you can't set a custom username for the user portal under the extension - you have to go to accounts and then you can change the username - if you make any change on that extension again, it'll reset the username.
FollowMe isn't as swift as it is in FreePBX. I am actually writing a dialplan to fix FollowMe, I hope they will accept it.In terms of development, their API is quite good to read information. I hope they will add ARI support as well.
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@pitzkey Sounds like it has improved quite a bit. I know version 3 recently came out, and I know that there is a new EPM in beta.
I'm not saying it is a bad solution. Simply that when I last tried to implement it, I did not care for the current state of it.
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@scottalanmiller Thanks Scott, appreciate it. Been running FreePBX for a very long time but it time for us to move on.
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@frankengeek said in VitalPBX:
@scottalanmiller Thanks Scott, appreciate it. Been running FreePBX for a very long time but it time for us to move on.
Why? Moving is much more expensive (man hours) than upgrading.
Is there something broke that does not do what you need? Is there a commercial feature you don't like? Is there a feature missing that you want?
I am absolutely not saying to not use VitalPBX. Based on what @PitzKey has posted, it is much improved over version 2 that I last tested out.
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@jaredbusch said in VitalPBX:
@frankengeek said in VitalPBX:
@scottalanmiller Thanks Scott, appreciate it. Been running FreePBX for a very long time but it time for us to move on.
Why? Moving is much more expensive (man hours) than upgrading.
Is there something broke that does not do what you need? Is there a commercial feature you don't like? Is there a feature missing that you want?
I am absolutely not saying to not use VitalPBX. Based on what @PitzKey has posted, it is much improved over version 2 that I last tested out.
I'm curious as well. We switched to VitalPBX and are very happy. But we weren't migrating old FreePBX systems. FreePBX is still totally viable and we still use that, too. If deploying new, I like VitalPBX over FreePBX most of the time. But I'd be pretty hesitant to switch an existing system just because there is a lot of effort involved and FreePBX should, in theory, work pretty well.
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@jaredbusch Multiple reasons. I've given it a lot of thought. Been putting this project off since Covid started.
Little background on us. Been running Asterisk@home, Trixbox then FreePBX distro for a small city government. Made a ton of investment in training my guys to use it. I had an appliance from FreePBX and due to a hardware failure I had to migrate off to my virtualized backup and stayed there ever since. Hardware was just out of warranty. The VM worked for us as we are not high volume, as least till the power goes out lol. During the import something went wrong. I couldn't restore due to a version problem - my fault. It's worked but FreePBX support said I would need to manually enter in all my extensions etc and rebuild from scratch. I have commercial modules and up to this year paid support.
My decision to look else ware is based on where I see FreePBX going. Living through the Trixbox years I see some of the same things happening. My test VitalPBX environment has been running great. My FreePBX install has failed to the point that I can't upgrade it any more. My Sangoma account has lost all the information that I have commercial modules so the update fails. Every time I make a change in the system It removes my users from their groups so they can't use UCP. 140 extensions takes a while to fix. Support tickets go unanswered so why pay for it. I could fix it if I had the time. Just where I'm at right now.
Not going to bash FreePBX. I've run Amportal back in the day to augment a key phone system so I've been around a while. I've never run a large system like @scottalanmiller thou. People get tied up in what they choose to run I don't. If it works and gets the job done I'll use it.
I let you guys know how a fair. I've been a lurker as many beat me to the punch in answering but I listen to what you guys have to say.
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@frankengeek said in VitalPBX:
My decision to look else ware is based on where I see FreePBX going.
This is something I am worried about, also.
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@frankengeek said in VitalPBX:
Support tickets go unanswered so why pay for it.
That is a good reason to look for a new company.
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@frankengeek said in VitalPBX:
The VM worked for us as we are not high volume
VM is the enterprise grade stuff, the appliance is the joke. Production should always be a VM on real infrastructure. So you are actually in better shape, not worse.
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@jaredbusch said in VitalPBX:
@frankengeek said in VitalPBX:
My decision to look else ware is based on where I see FreePBX going.
This is something I am worried about, also.
I would be surprised if Sangoma didn't take care of it, but the code base is such a mess, I'd want to start over if I was Sangoma.
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@frankengeek You have some weird issues all right. Not going to try and troubleshoot.
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@frankengeek said in VitalPBX:
My FreePBX install has failed to the point that I can't upgrade it any more. My Sangoma account has lost all the information that I have commercial modules so the update fails. Every time I make a change in the system It removes my users from their groups so they can't use UCP. 140 extensions takes a while to fix. Support tickets go unanswered so why pay for it. I could fix it if I had the time. Just where I'm at right now.
Well damn, yeah. VitalPBX is very responsive for support, even on free channels!
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@scottalanmiller said in VitalPBX:
@jaredbusch said in VitalPBX:
@frankengeek said in VitalPBX:
My decision to look else ware is based on where I see FreePBX going.
This is something I am worried about, also.
I would be surprised if Sangoma didn't take care of it, but the code base is such a mess, I'd want to start over if I was Sangoma.
IMO, Sangoma bought something that looked good on the outside, but the underside was a disaster.
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@jaredbusch said in VitalPBX:
@scottalanmiller said in VitalPBX:
@jaredbusch said in VitalPBX:
@frankengeek said in VitalPBX:
My decision to look else ware is based on where I see FreePBX going.
This is something I am worried about, also.
I would be surprised if Sangoma didn't take care of it, but the code base is such a mess, I'd want to start over if I was Sangoma.
IMO, Sangoma bought something that looked good on the outside, but the underside was a disaster.
My guess is that they knew that, or guessed at it. It's FOSS so they should have known. I'm guessing that FreePBX had so much marketshare that they decided that it was worth it on that basis alone.
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@jaredbusch LOL so true brother
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IMO: Sangoma can still achieve a nice recovery if they get their hands real dirty and don't rest until they clean up or rewrite huge chunks of FreePBX.
I don't know the current development team, but Matt Fredrickson, Lorne Gaetz, Mike White and others involved in the project who I know, are truly amazing people and want to make FreePBX better. If they leave Sangoma, we can officially say RIP FreePBX.
