Telephone Alternatives

    Telephone is described as 'allows you to make phone calls over the Internet or your company network. If your phone line supports SIP protocol, you can use it on your Mac instead of a physical phone anywhere you have a decent network connection' and is an app in the Social & Communications category. There are more than 50 alternatives to Telephone for a variety of platforms, including Android, iPhone, Windows, Mac and Online / Web-based. The best alternative is Signal, which is both free and Open Source. Other great apps like Telephone are Jitsi (Free, Open Source), Wire (Free Personal, Open Source), Jami (Free, Open Source) and Zulip (Free Personal, Open Source).

    This page was last updated Mar 9, 2021
    1. Signal is a messaging app with an unexpected focus on privacy, combined with all the features expected from a modern IM app. Signal has received a lot of praise from all around the world for its security and privacy-respecting technologies.
      show more ▾
      Signal vs Telephone opinions
      pros, cons and recent comments
      It can't connect to your pbx, the whole point of a softphone.
      Negative comment • 11 months ago

      0
      Seth Signal is not a SIP client
      Negative comment • over 3 years ago

      0
    2. Jitsi (previously SIP Communicator) is an audio/video and chat communicator with full encryption that supports protocols such as SIP, XMPP/Jabber, ICQ/AIM, Windows Live, Yahoo!, GTalk/Hangouts extensions, as well as OTR, ZRTP, etc.
      show more ▾

    4. Wire

      • Free Personal • Open Source
      • Mac
      • Windows
      • Linux
      • Online
      • Android
      • iPhone
      • Android Tablet
      • iPad
      • Self-Hosted
      • Software as a Service (SaaS)
      ▼
      ▼
      Wire is the most secure collaboration platform featuring messenger, voice, video, conference calls, file-sharing, and external collaboration –all protected by the most secure end-to-end-encryption. Why Wire?
      show more ▾
    5. Jami (formerly GNU Ring, SFLphone) positions itself as a potential free Skype replacement Open Source and cross-platform. Jami gives you a full control over your communications and an unmatched level of privacy.
      show more ▾
    6. Zulip is a group chat app in which messages are threaded by topic, helping you have long-running, organized conversations.
      show more ▾

    8. Linphone

      • Free • Open Source
      • Mac
      • Windows
      • Linux
      • Online
      • Windows Mobile
      • Android
      • iPhone
      • Android Tablet
      • Windows Phone
      • iPad
      • Xfce
      ▼
      ▼
      Linphone is one of the most famous open source softphones in the world. It is fully SIP-based, for all calling, presence and IM features. Use Linphone for free, and enjoy its intuitive interface and advanced features with our free SIP service or with an existing SIP account.
      show more ▾
    9. Video conversations with up to 8 people in your browser - no downloads, no login. Just name your channel and you are on. Works in all modern browsers, even mobile.
      show more ▾
    10. Empathy is a messaging program which supports text, voice, video chat, and file transfers over many different protocols. You can tell it about your accounts on all those services and do all your chatting within one application.

      Discontinued

      Empathy is currently unmaintained. Last version, 3.25, released in August 2017, can be still downloaded from the official website.

      show more ▾
    11. MicroSIP is a free portable SIP softphone for Windows based on PJSIP stack.
      show more ▾

    12. YakYak

      • Free • Open Source
      • Mac
      • Windows
      • Linux
      • Hangouts
      ▼
      ▼
      What does it do: * Send/receive chat messages * Create/change conversations (rename, add people) * Leave/delete conversation * Notifications * Toggle notifications on/off * Drag-drop, copy-paste or attach-button for image upload.
      show more ▾
    Showing 10 of 55 alternatives