Looking for a PBX alternative? Asterisk has changed a lot and Josua Colp explains it

If you have been following the world of VoIP PBX systems for a while, you have surely heard in recent months about many people looking for alternatives. There is a well-known PBX <cough, cough> that has been changing its licensing terms and pricing models in a way that, let’s say, hasn’t gone down too well with many of its users. And that discomfort has made quite a few people start looking again at Asterisk.

The problem is that many of those approaching Asterisk haven’t touched it for years and have in their heads the image of an Asterisk from a decade ago: complex, with overlapping versions, with the eternal dilemma of whether to update or not to update.

Good news: that Asterisk no longer exists.

Josua Colp (the current leader of the Asterisk project, well known to those of us who have been in this field for a while) has summarized it perfectly in his article Welcome New, and Returning, Asterisk Users!, and it is well worth reading.

Today’s Asterisk has a predictable release calendar: every 4-6 weeks there are new versions of all active branches, and every October a new major version arrives. There are LTS branches with up to 5 years of security support, Certified branches for environments that prefer maximum stability, and there is no longer any excuse for staying frozen on an old version out of fear of breaking something.

Also, something that was previously unthinkable: new functionality can now be added to already-released branches, without waiting for the next major version. The most recent and exciting example is Media Over Websockets, which greatly facilitates integrations with Voice AI platforms.

The project is alive and active, with a test suite of more than 1,000 automated tests to ensure correct operation in each version and a community at community.asterisk.org where even Josua himself stops by to answer questions.

So if you’ve been thinking about migrating your PBX to a solution that won’t change the rules of the game midway through, it might be a good time to give Asterisk a second chance.