About 3CX
3CX pricing
3CX has a free version and offers a free trial. 3CX paid version starts at US$0.00/month.
Alternatives to 3CX
3CX Reviews
Feature rating
- Industry: Information Technology & Services
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
The best VoIP phone system for small businesses
We had a customer that had 3 different companies within the walls of the building. We were able to configure each company separately so that their rules, hours, and each had different SIP providers that needed to be configured up properly. Each had their own digital assistant and the system setup took only a few hours to complete with all the complexity that was involved. Technical support was outstanding in assisting with the troubleshooting and setup.
Pros
The 8 concurrent call Standard License is free to all companies. This makes it a perfect solution for churches, small businesses, and as the small businesses grow into medium sized businesses, the annual cost for the license with higher concurrent calls is nominal. When companies switch from the POTS lines, they need to figure out a good solution for VoIP. 3cx is lower cost than RingCentral and 8x8 as well as many other competing VoIP softwares.
Cons
Putting in supported APAP adapters is great, but when a customer has a non supported adapter, it usually works, but doesn't play nicely with the software as far as configuring it easily.
Response from 3CX
Sincere thanks for your feedback.
- Industry: Logistics & Supply Chain
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
3CX is fine, but it is all about who handles the hosting
3CX feels like it is a step up from a normal landline, but I don't see any wow factors that I feel like I could get from some of the other VoIP names.
If you're looking for something less expensive than Ring Central, Phone.com, and OnSip, then you should be able to find a small VoIP provider willing to offer you a hosted package with 3CX for a lower price.
Pros
3CX is straightforward. It seems to have all the necessary features for a small business. Still, as a business owner who cannot work on the admin side, I can only comment on the usability and stability.
Compared to other softphone apps, I've never had significant issues. I use 3CX as a softphone on an iPhone, through a Yealink desk phone, via Chrome plugin, and on an iPad. Surprisingly, the limitations I see are not due to the daily functions.
There are some features I would like, but there is nothing about this app that hinders my company's ability to operate without delay. We have users in China, Thailand, the Philippines, Jamacia, Venezuela, and the US. All locations work well, and the apps work even with limited internet access.
There are times when the connection is not great, but this is usually due to the internet and not the apps.
Cons
There is no way for my ringer on my softphone or desk phone to be customized to ring differently when someone calls my extension vs. ring group. I wish there were connectivity with Zapier so that I could push contacts from other services into our address book.
It would be nice if the SMS chat feature worked more similarly to a shared inbox, where everyone could see it. You can only transfer the chat to another extension, which makes SMS hard to use as a group.
Overall, the cons are not about the ability to use 3CX but the features I wish it had that could provide a better overall experience.
Response from 3CX
Hi Sam and thank you for your review! We are glad to hear that you are enjoying using our software and that it has helped you stay in touch with your employees throughout the world!
Regarding the points you raised, desk phones can be configured to have distinctive ringtones for Queue Calls, so you should certainly consider switching to using Queues instead of Ring Groups. Apart from this, you would also get better reporting capabilities and a lot more polling strategies to choose from.
For syncing you phonebook contacts, we do currently offer integration with Microsoft 365, but in the coming updates we will have a REST API that may also allow you to interact with the 3CX Phonebook, giving you the maximum flexibility in syncing your contacts between various platforms.
Incoming SMS messages can be sent either to an Individual Extension or to a Queue, in which case all logged in members of that Queue will see incoming messages.
- Industry: Telecommunications
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Weekly for 2+ years
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Review Source
Effective Phone System For Small, Simple Offices
For under 50 extensions and without any special functionality, 3CX is a very user-friendly platform. However, for any project that requires any custom functionality, 3CX will simply not be able to offer help.
Pros
The 3CX installer on both Linux and Windows is incredibly easy to use and users can go from nothing to a fully-featured phone system in less than 20 minutes. Once installed, the user interface is very clean and straightforward.
The 3CX Softphone that can be installed on Windows and mac computers pairs effortlessly with 3CX provisioning files.
Cons
3CX offers very little customization outside of the user interface, and commonly phone system managers will be simply unable to perform more-complex call routing. As an example, dynamic outbound routes are simply not possible outside of the overly-simple Outbound Routes tab, and you are limited to only prefix, length of destination, and from extension.
Compared to FreePBX and FusionPBX, the ability to customize 3CX is almost non-existent.
3CX Support will 100% of the time deflect any technical issues to the carrier, and after numerous ticket responses later, they will finally admit to being able to help.
SIP SRV records are completely broken and not compliant with the SIP RFC. It's hilarious how catastrophic this lack of functionality is.
Faxing is completely broken. It will be a complete nightmare if you attempt to run T.38 faxing over a 3CX phone system.
- Industry: Telecommunications
- Company size: 10,000+ Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
3cx is an essential program
I am very satisfied with the 3 cx program, as I have been able to carry out its functions in a practical and efficient way on a daily basis. While not perfect, I think this program is very useful.
Pros
This program has provided a trouble-free calling and receiving experience from the moment it was installed on your computer. As a daily user of this tool, I haven't had major difficulties or complaints related to poor quality or connection drops.
Cons
There are few aspects of the program that I dislike. The first one is the delay in the initial connection. Although it did not record connection failures, the connection slowness makes the program less practical. Also, I notice the lack of an option to make conference calls, which is of paramount importance for my tasks. If this option were available, the utility of the program would improve.
Response from 3CX
Hello, thank you for the highly rated review! We love to hear that 3CX has been very practical and efficient for your business.
You can also visit our 3CX Forum to find out more about the option of the conference calls and any other questions you may have: https://www.3cx.com/community/
- Industry: Computer Networking
- Company size: Self Employed
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
phonesystems do still excist and usability ontop
3cx is small or big companies the best option possible also customers not wanting to use cloud telephony 3cx still provides option to have on-prem solution
Pros
full featured phone system with no extra costs. possibility to have cloud deployed, private cloud or even on-premise!
Cons
some features are still in beta but they are already active and communication when issues rice is closely followed by support to have them asap out of beta.
Reasons for Choosing 3CX
to many bugs and priceSwitched From
SkypeReasons for Switching to 3CX
for calling 3cx and in full lockdown and performance issues with 3cx we went for zoom for the online meetingsResponse from 3CX
Hello Andreas! Thank you so much for taking the time to share your feedback with 3CX. We're delighted to hear you found 3CX to be of great use for your business during the lockdown.
