Re: SIP services and softphones: what do you guys use?
On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 11:02 PM, Dotan Cohen <dotancohen@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm trying to get rid of proprietary Skype and two of my most
> important contacts are willing to give SIP a try. We all installed
> Ekiga and signed up for ~@ekiga.net SIP addresses, but the sound
> quality was very choppy and unusable. They are both on Windows.
>
> Is there an better softphone? Is there a better sip address service
> than ekiga.net? Is there a better softphone for Windows than Ekiga?
>
Ekiga has a nasty reputation of generally being non functional. I
couldn't make it work on my system, either. I've sampled a handful of
SIP softphones and stopped my attention to two: Linphone [1] and Jitsi
[2], both cross-platform.
Linphone is a mature application with robust sound, and good video (if
you follow the FAQ). On the downside the UI design is a bit rusty and
would need some love and attention, but nothing hopelessly bad. Jitsi
is different. It is still in active, pre-release development, although
many report using it in production mode and that it is stable
(personally I'm still having some hitches with the audio, but you
should try on your system). The upside of Jitsi is a clean and
intuitive interface (a bit similar to Skype on Linux), and long list
of fancy features, including support for many protocols
(Pidgin-style), audio, video, conferencing, encryption, desktop
sharing, call recording, etc. Both apps are open-source with
commercial support available.
You should try both and see which better fits your needs. If you're
looking for more alternatives, try this [3] [4]. Regards
Liviu
[1] http://alternativeto.net/software/linphone/
[2] http://alternativeto.net/software/sip-communicator/
[3] http://alternativeto.net/software/skype/
[4] http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/priority-projects/#skypereplacement
Reply to: