FreePBX vs A2Billing

When you start looking at control panels for Asterisk it can be difficult to decide what you should be using – FreePBX or A2Billing.

While they are both web GUIs for setting up Asterisk, they are used for different things and which one to choose depends on your needs.

Here is a brief description of both to help you decide -

FreePBX

Used for setting up extensions and trunks for inbound and outbound callsIncludes lots of features of a traditional PBX – voicemail, IVRs, ring groups, queues etc.Includes Call Detail Records (CDR) that logs all calls, their destination and duration

A2Billing

Used for billing for callsCan be used to charge for calling card, sip user or regular outbound callsThe heart of A2Billing are the rate cards that include the per minute cost for all destinations allowed to be calledLeast cost routing with multiple rate cards with the cheapest route being chosenAdmin and customer interfaces

So FreePBX is used to setup Asterisk with the features of a ‘traditional’ PBX and A2Billing focuses on billing for different types of calls.

It is also possible to combine the two and use A2Billing to account for outbound calls for extensions setup within FreePBX.

A2Billing is more complicated to setup than FreePBX. While it’s possible to setup an extension and trunk in FreePBX and start making calls very quickly there is quite a learning curve with A2Billing. Managing rate cards which hold all destinations and their cost can be quite complex.

All VPS templates offered by SysAdminMan include FreePBX – SysAdminMan, Trixbox, Elastix and PBX-in-a-flash

The following two templates include A2Billing – SysAdminMan and Elastix

Related posts: Least Cost Routing (LCR) with Asterisk and A2BillingA2Billing 1.4 development UK VPSUsing A2Billing to account for extension calls in Elastix