FreePBX is a web-based

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

graphical user interface A graphical user interface, or GUI, is a form of user interface that allows user (computing), users to human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through Graphics, graphical icon (computing), icons and visual indicators such ...

(GUI) that manages

Asterisk The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...

, a

voice over IP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also known as IP telephony, is a set of technologies used primarily for voice communication sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. VoIP enables voice calls to be transmitted as ...

(VoIP) and

telephony Telephony ( ) is the field of technology involving the development, application, and deployment of telecommunications services for the purpose of electronic transmission of voice, fax, or data, between distant parties. The history of telephony is ...

server. FreePBX is licensed under the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public Licenses (GNU GPL or simply GPL) are a series of widely used free software licenses, or ''copyleft'' licenses, that guarantee end users the freedom to run, study, share, or modify the software. The GPL was the first ...

version 3, with commercial modules available under their own licenses. FreePBX is a component of the now discontinued FreePBX Distro, released by the FreePBX project, which was a maintained

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

system derived from the source code of the

CentOS CentOS (, from Community Enterprise Operating System; also known as CentOS Linux) is a discontinued Linux distribution that provided a free and open-source community-supported computing platform, functionally compatible with its upstream (softw ...

distribution with all components needed, including Asterisk, pre-installed and released as a turnkey distribution. FreePBX is included in other open source distributions such as AsteriskNOW, Elastix and RasPBX. PBXact is a commercially supported offering from Sangoma that is based on FreePBX. FreePBX is maintained by a community of developers and contributors using the

GitHub GitHub () is a Proprietary software, proprietary developer platform that allows developers to create, store, manage, and share their code. It uses Git to provide distributed version control and GitHub itself provides access control, bug trackin ...

platform. The slogan for FreePBX is "''Let Freedom Ring''". The mascot for FreePBX, as seen in the logo, is Tango the frog.

History

FreePBX was initially released as the Asterisk Management Portal (AMP), version 1.10.002. This was originally created by Coalescent Systems and was a simple database that wrote configuration files for Asterisk to use. The project was renamed to freePBX (later FreePBX) at version 2.0 for trademark reasons, as

was a registered trademark of the Digium corporation at the time (Digium is now also a subsidiary of Sangoma Technologies Corporation). FreePBX was acquired by Schmooze Com Inc on February 22, 2013. Schmooze Com Inc was acquired by Sangoma Technologies Corporation on January 2, 2015.

Installation

FreePBX 17 is officially supported on Debian Linux. It is installed by using a bash script downloaded from the website on a freshly installed copy of Debian 12. The script installs all of the necessary prerequisites needed for FreePBX to run, including Asterisk. The software is also offered stand-alone and can be installed on a Linux distribution of choice, however, this requires installing all the prerequisites and Asterisk manually. FreePBX up to version 16 can be installed as stand-alone software or as part of the pre-configured FreePBX Distro that includes the CentOS Linux operating system, the Asterisk PBX, FreePBX and necessary prerequisites. Due to CentOS Linux being discontinued and the last supported version of CentOS 7 going out of support on June 30, 2024, FreePBX will no longer be providing a pre-configured FreePBX Distro. In-place upgrade/migration is not possible, but can be achieved by restoring a backup on the new version from the previous version. This move allows FreePBX to be run on a modern, secure and supported operating system. FreePBX 16 will be supported until the release of FreePBX 18 - FreePBX on this distribution will still work and be supported, however, there will be no further support for the underlying operating system.

Development

FreePBX is written in PHP, JavaScript and shell script and uses the LAMP stack. New releases of Asterisk have been accommodated by various updates to FreePBX. Updates have included new modules and support for additional capabilities such as voicemail, calling queues, fax, multiple languages, DAHDI and a local user directory. FreePBX maintain the currently released version and the previous release behind this. When a new version is released, the oldest supported version becomes end of life at the same time.

Version history

Hardware support

FreePBX supports numerous hardware manufacturers, including Algo, AND, AudioCodes,

Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc. (using the trademark Cisco) is an American multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, s ...

, Cyberdata, Digium, Grandstream, Mitel/ Aastra,

Nortel Nortel Networks Corporation (Nortel), formerly Northern Telecom Limited, was a Canadian Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications and data networking equipment manufacturer headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario. It was founded in ...

Avaya Avaya LLC(), formerly Avaya Inc., is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Morristown, New Jersey, that provides cloud communications and workstream collaboration services. The company's platform includes unified commun ...

Panasonic is a Japanese multinational electronics manufacturer, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka, Kadoma, Japan. It was founded in 1918 as in Fukushima-ku, Osaka, Fukushima by Kōnosuke Matsushita. The company was incorporated in 1935 and renamed and c ...

Polycom Poly Inc., formerly Polycom, is an American multinational corporation that develops video, voice and content collaboration and communication technology. Poly is a subsidiary of HP Inc. Polycom was co-founded in 1990 by Brian L Hinman and Jeff ...

, Sangoma, Snom, Xorcom and . FreePBX developers estimate the distro has been deployed in millions of active PBX systems in over 220 countries and territories. When Digium took over the Asterisk project, they released a series of SIP phones that tightly integrate with FreePBX, including provisioning support and apps. Since both FreePBX and Digium were acquired by Sangoma, Sangoma have released a number of SIP phones that tightly integrate with FreePBX. Sangoma have also released certified appliances to run FreePBX. These are custom computer servers already configured with FreePBX. They are rated by the concurrent amount of calls the appliance can handle at once.

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://www.freepbx.org/ Free VoIP software Unified communications Software using the GNU Affero General Public License Software using the GNU General Public License