Top 5 FreePBX Hosting Providers

Discover the top 5 FreePBX hosting providers offering reliable, high-performance solutions for your business communications. Compare features, pricing, and support to find the best fit for your needs. #centlinux #linux #pbx

What is IP PBX System?

An IP PBX, or Internet Protocol Private Branch Exchange, is a type of private branch exchange (PBX) phone system that uses Internet Protocol (IP) data networks to manage and route calls. Unlike traditional PBX systems that rely on analog or digital phone lines, IP PBX systems transmit voice data over IP networks, such as the internet or local area networks (LANs).

Here are some key aspects of IP PBX systems:

1. Voice Over IP (VoIP) Technology: IP PBX systems use VoIP technology to convert analog voice signals into digital data packets, which are then transmitted over IP networks.
2. Unified Communication Features: IP PBX systems often include a range of unified communication features, such as voicemail, auto-attendants, conference calling, and call forwarding. These features enhance collaboration and productivity within organizations.
3. Scalability: IP PBX systems can easily scale to accommodate growing business needs by adding more users, extensions, or features. This scalability makes them suitable for businesses of all sizes, from small startups to large enterprises.
4. Cost Savings: By leveraging existing IP infrastructure, such as LANs and the internet, IP PBX systems can significantly reduce telecommunication costs compared to traditional PBX systems. They also eliminate the need for separate voice and data networks.
5. Flexibility: IP PBX systems offer greater flexibility in terms of deployment options. They can be hosted on-premises, in the cloud, or as a hybrid solution, depending on the organization’s preferences and requirements.
6. Remote Accessibility: Employees can access the IP PBX system from anywhere with an internet connection, enabling remote work and supporting mobile workforce initiatives.
7. Integration: IP PBX systems can integrate with other business applications, such as customer relationship management (CRM) software, email clients, and productivity tools, to streamline workflows and improve efficiency.

Overall, IP PBX systems provide a modern, cost-effective, and feature-rich solution for managing business communications, offering greater flexibility, scalability, and integration capabilities compared to traditional PBX systems.

What is FreePBX?

FreePBX is an open-source platform designed to simplify the management of Asterisk, a powerful and flexible voice over IP (VoIP) telephony engine. With its intuitive graphical user interface (GUI), FreePBX enables users to set up and manage a comprehensive phone system without needing extensive technical expertise in telephony or networking. Here are some key features and benefits of FreePBX:

Key Features

1. User-Friendly Interface: The GUI makes it easy to configure and manage various telephony features, reducing the complexity associated with Asterisk.
2. Call Routing: Set up advanced call routing rules to ensure calls reach the right destinations, whether it’s internal extensions, voicemail, or external numbers.
3. Voicemail: Manage voicemail for each extension with options for voicemail to email, greetings, and storage settings.
4. IVR (Interactive Voice Response): Create automated menus that guide callers to the appropriate department or service, improving customer service and efficiency.
5. Conference Calling: Set up and manage conference bridges, allowing multiple participants to join a single call.
6. Call Recording: Enable call recording for monitoring and training purposes, with easy access to recorded calls through the interface.
7. Extension Management: Easily add, modify, and delete extensions, and configure settings for each user.
8. Integration: Integrates with various third-party applications and services, including CRM systems, to enhance functionality and streamline workflows.
9. Security: Features built-in security measures to protect against unauthorized access and ensure the integrity of your communication system.

Benefits

1. Cost-Effective: As an open-source solution, FreePBX can significantly reduce the costs associated with traditional PBX systems, particularly in terms of licensing fees.
2. Scalability: Suitable for businesses of all sizes, FreePBX can grow with your business, accommodating additional users and features as needed.
3. Flexibility: The platform supports a wide range of telephony hardware and software, allowing businesses to tailor their phone system to their specific needs.
4. Community Support: Being open-source, FreePBX benefits from a large community of users and developers who contribute to its development, offer support, and share solutions to common issues.
5. Customization: Highly customizable to meet unique business requirements, with numerous modules and add-ons available to extend functionality.

Use Cases

• Small and Medium Businesses: Ideal for businesses looking to implement a professional-grade phone system without significant upfront costs.
• Call Centers: Provides features like call routing, recording, and reporting that are essential for call center operations.
• Remote Work: Facilitates remote work by allowing employees to connect to the phone system from anywhere, ensuring seamless communication.

FreePBX is a robust solution for managing business communications, offering a rich set of features and the flexibility to adapt to various business needs. Its ease of use and cost-effectiveness make it a popular choice for organizations looking to enhance their telephony capabilities.

How to Find FreePBX Hosting for VoIP?

FreePBX hosting refers to the service of hosting a FreePBX system on remote servers managed by a third-party provider. This means that instead of setting up and maintaining the FreePBX system on your own hardware, you use a cloud-based or dedicated server provided by a hosting company. Here are some key aspects of FreePBX hosting:

Key Aspects

Managed Hosting:

• Pros: Hosting providers handle the installation, configuration, updates, and maintenance of the FreePBX system. This reduces the technical burden on your internal IT team.
• Cons: It may be more expensive than unmanaged hosting.

Unmanaged Hosting:

• Pros: Offers more control and flexibility, allowing you to configure and manage the system according to your specific needs.
• Cons: Requires more technical knowledge and responsibility for maintenance.

Scalability:

• Pros: Easily scalable to accommodate growing business needs. You can increase resources like CPU, memory, and storage as your requirements grow.
• Cons: Costs may increase with additional resources.

Reliability and Uptime:

• Pros: Professional hosting providers often guarantee high uptime and reliability, ensuring that your communication system is always available.
• Cons: Reliant on the provider’s infrastructure and network stability.

Security:

• Pros: Hosting providers implement robust security measures, including firewalls, DDoS protection, and regular backups, to protect your system from threats.
• Cons: Trusting a third party with your data requires careful consideration of their security policies and practices.

Support:

• Pros: Many hosting providers offer 24/7 technical support to help resolve any issues quickly.
• Cons: The quality of support can vary between providers, so it’s important to choose a reputable company.

Benefits of FreePBX Hosting

1. Cost Savings: Reduces the need for investing in on-premise hardware and infrastructure, lowering capital expenditure.
2. Ease of Management: Offloads the technical management to the hosting provider, freeing up internal resources.
3. Remote Accessibility: Enables remote access to the FreePBX system from anywhere, supporting remote work and multi-location businesses.
4. Automatic Updates: Hosting providers often manage updates and patches, ensuring your system is always up-to-date with the latest features and security enhancements.
5. Backup and Recovery: Regular backups and disaster recovery plans provided by the host ensure your data is safe and can be restored in case of an issue.

Choosing a FreePBX Hosting Provider

When selecting a FreePBX hosting provider, consider the following factors:

• Reputation and Reviews: Look for providers with positive reviews and a good reputation in the industry.
• Service Level Agreements (SLAs): Check the SLAs to understand the guaranteed uptime and support response times.
• Pricing: Compare pricing plans to find one that fits your budget while offering the necessary features and support.
• Customization Options: Ensure the provider allows for the customization and scalability required by your business.
• Security Practices: Verify that the provider follows best security practices to protect your data and communications.

FreePBX hosting is a practical solution for businesses seeking a powerful and flexible VoIP phone system without the complexities of managing the infrastructure themselves.

Recommended Online Training: FreePBX Asterisk VoIP PBX Server Administration Step by Step

Top 5 FreePBX Hosting Providers

You can configure an in-premises FreePBX server by installing Asterisk PBX on Linux Server and FreePBX Admin GUI. But it definitely requires expensive hardware and technical human resources to manage that server.

Alternatively, there are many FreePBX cloud hosting providers are available, that charges a monthly fee and provides you a Linux based FreePBX cloud.

In this article, we have compiled a list of top 5 FreePBX cloud hosting providers.

1. Sangoma

Sangoma is the primary developer and sponsor of Asterisk and FreePBX, the two largest open source communications projects in the world. This powerful engine of innovation keeps Sangoma’s commercial offerings on the cutting edge of VoIP security and reliability, as well as Unified Communications (UC) functionality.

Sangoma’s turnkey UC business phone systems can both scale up to accommodate large configurations for thousands of users as well as down for small businesses with just a few users, providing an affordable solution for every organization.

Sangoma’s global footprint extends to millions of customers using our products and services in leading PBX, IVR, contact center, carrier network, and data communication applications.

Switchvox Cloud is a fully-featured Unified Communications (UC) solution designed for SMBs. Now you can take advantage of powerful UC features, including presence, instant messaging, conferencing, and mobility – all for a low monthly rate starting at $19.99 for a limited time.

Switchvox Cloud is scalable to 1,000 seats and perfect for growing companies, it is easy to deploy and scale up or down with pre-provisioned phones shipped directly to you. Simply plug into your network, and you’re ready to go. Supported directly by Sangoma, system updates and end user support are managed for you. And you can rest easy knowing your phone system, service, and support are all coming from the same vendor.

Have a look at the updated Sangoma FreePBX cloud pricing.

2. FreePBX Hosting

FreePBXHosting.com is run by CyberLynk which has built a family of companies through acquisitions and services that have grown into their own brand over the years. CyberLynk has been in business since 1995, is privately held and owns/maintains a datacenter in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Phoenix, Arizona.

FreePBX Hosting offers VPS (Virtual Private Server) and Dedicated Server hosting packages. VPS prices are starting from $19.00 per month and the Dedicated server prices are starting from $50.00 per month.

The prices may vary depends upon the

• Server Storage Capacity
• Server Memory
• No. of Telephone Extensions
• Concurrent Calls
• No. of Call Recordings

Complete list of FreePBX cloud hosting packages are available at their website.

3. CrossTalk Solutions

Crosstalk Solutions has been designing and building phone systems for close to 20 years. For businesses ranging from SMB to large call centers, we will work with you to design the most effective and efficient phone system configuration possible. This is integral to the successful deployment of the PBX, and our goal is to ensure you are making the best use of the system – not simply using it to send and receive phone calls.

The Crosstalk Cloud PBX package starts with 80GB of storage, 4GB of RAM, and a static IP address. Monthly price includes monthly offsite configuration backups, and monthly server updates. It also includes the Endpoint Manager and Sys Admin Pro commercial modules. The base model Cloud Hosted PBX is capable of 15-25 concurrent calls, and more powerful deployments are available.

At CrossTalk website, you may find the updated CrossTalk FreePBX cloud hosting pricing.

4. 3CX

3CX’s easy and quick deployment and simple day to day management is a huge selling feature. Not only does 3CX make running a PBX easy in terms of upgrades, security and scalability, but its management interface makes these tasks and the addition of new extensions a walk in the park. 3CX’s zero admin will be a time, and therefore a cost, saver for you and your customer.

Run 3CX On-premise or in the Cloud – whatever makes most sense for the customer. Importantly, your customers can choose the hosted solution and benefit from 1-year free hosting; or chose to deploy in a private cloud on Google, Azure or Amazon. Larger companies might want to manage it themselves in which case it’s a selling point that you can offer.

Cost savings with 3CX are remarkable. Switching from a traditional PBX to an IP PBX will already deliver significant call costs savings. But this will be highlighted by all contenders for the system. Stress the low cost of 3CX – compared to other traditional PBX vendors and hosted systems in the market today. You will be up against other hosted systems – you might as well preempt and show how 3CX is much more cost effective.

• Unlimited Users
• Choose your own SIP Trunk
• FREE for unlimited extensions
• Low annual license price – starts at $2 per user per month!
• Install On-Premise on MiniPC or Virtualize on an existing server.
• Linux or Windows.
• Auto configuration of phones & SIP Trunks.

Have a look at the 3CX FreePBX cloud hosting pricing.

5. iWando

The virtual private server has become one of the most highly sought after options in the FreePBX cloud hosting market. It is an ideal solution for small businesses, beginners, and home users who require more reliability then hosting the PBX out of your office or house can provide.

iWando uses Google Data Centers that have redundant power, greenest data center infrastructures among the world’s companies and best infrastructure.

You do not need to make a large upfront investment by purchasing an office telephone system and there is no need to maintain it. With a Hosted PBX solution the office telephone system is operated and maintained by your FreePBX cloud hosting provider.

Their flexible virtual private server packages give you complete control over your FreePBX cloud hosting installation with full root access.

Traditional phone systems are limited by how many users they can handle as well as how many lines you have purchased from your local telephone provider. Virtual systems can expand and grow with your business as you need them to.

End-user management of a Cloud Hosted PBX is far more user-friendly than is the case with traditional solutions. Intuitive web interfaces mean that anyone can manage, monitor and make changes to the service at any time, without needing any specialized or experience.

Final Thoughts

Choosing the right hosting provider for your FreePBX system is crucial for ensuring reliable and efficient business communications. The top 5 FreePBX hosting providers offer a range of features, support options, and pricing plans to suit different business needs. Whether you prioritize cost, scalability, security, or customer support, there’s a provider that can meet your requirements. By carefully evaluating your options and considering your specific needs, you can select a hosting provider that will help your FreePBX system perform optimally, enhancing your business’s communication capabilities.

For professional assistance in setting up and managing your FreePBX system, consider checking out my Fiverr gig here. I offer expert services to ensure your FreePBX installation is seamless and fully optimized for your business needs.