Finding software can be overwhelming. Software Advice has helped thousands of businesses choose the right softphone software so they can make and receive calls using laptops.
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RingCentral Office is a cloud-based business phone solution that offers business communication tools for video, voice, fax and text. Core features of the solution include conferencing, auto-recording and unlimited long-distance and... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
Nextiva's Business VoIP solutions offer small businesses enterprise-level telephony service that helps them to streamline company's communications and establish an in-house VoIP phone system. It offers an integrated and scalable PBX... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
Jive Communications delivers a cloud-based unified communication solution to organizations of all sizes across the U.S. Jive Voice includes integrated products for business VoIP, video conferencing and contact center which are all... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
Vonage Business Solutions is a cloud-based communications solution suitable for small and midsize companies. The solution offers a business phone system that enables businesses to connect their VoIP phone system to internet-enabled... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
FluentStream is a business phone solution designed for companies of all sizes. It offers call monitoring, telemarketing, IVR and reporting features within an integrated suite. The solution is available both in cloud-based and on-premise... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
Virtual Office is a collection of comprehensive web-based business VoIP solutions from offered by 8x8. Enterprise grade phone service, virtual meetings, mobile applications, virtual contact centers and more are available to help companies... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
Business Voice is a cloud-based VoiP solution created by PanTerra, which allows users to take or make calls from their office phone number, communicate with their team, and have file access, all from any device with an internet connection,... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
Designed for organizations of any size, Dialpad Talk is a cloud-based communications platform that allows businesses to access voice, messaging, meetings and video from any computer, smartphone, or tablet. Other key features include... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
OfficeConnect by UniVoip is a cloud-based phone system that offers features including auto-attendant, call paging, conferencing, email integration, one-touch speed dial and call recording. The platform is targeted towards mid to large-sized... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
net2phone’s cloud PBX VoIP phone solution enables businesses to communicate in a variety of methods, whether voice, texting, messaging or web chat, over an array of devices, in the office and on the go. The net2phone solution features... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
Five9 is an all-in-one cloud contact center solution for inbound, outbound, blended and omnichannel contact centers world-wide. Powered by Practical AI, Five9 enables agents to provide customer experiences across phone, email, chat,... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
Twilio's Voice API is a fully programmable VoIP system that helps companies make, manage and route calls to a browser, app, phone and more. Key features include call monitoring, call transcripts, call routing, PBX, auto dialer / predictive... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
NICE inContact Hosted Call Center
NICE inContact is a SaaS-based call center software that helps businesses to maximizes the quality of leads and minimizes the cost of client interaction. The solution comprises of many features required to process inbound support requests... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
Versature’s cloud-based business VoIP services provide Canadian companies with unified communications and call analytics solutions to help manage their business operations. Versature’s key features include auto attendants, click-to-dial,... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
Intulse is a cloud-based VoIP solution for small and midsize businesses. Key features include conference calls, call transfers, custom hold music, interactive voice response, ring groups, call queues, caller identification and missed... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
Skype for Business is a hybrid voice messaging solution that enables teams and individuals across the world to communicate and collaborate. It offers both cloud-based and on-premise solutions. This solution allows users to interact... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
Mitel is a cloud-based VoIP phone system that offers collaboration and conferencing tools to enable information flow within the organization. The solution enables system administrators to manage user settings, set preferences and... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
3CX is a software-based PBX that works with SIP standard-based IP Phones, SIP trunks and VoIP Gateways. Pricing for 3CX is based on the number of simultaneous calls that the system supports. Solutions are tailored to different business... Read more
Platforms: Win
Deployments: On premise
Business Size:
Aircall is a cloud-based phone system designed for teams like customer support or sales teams. Aircall is a software that allows companies to get phone numbers in 30 countries, configure them in seconds and forward calls easily across... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
ReadyTalk is a cloud-based communication service provider and offers hosted voice, video and web conferencing and streaming webinars. ReadyTalk’s hosted voice solution, powered by Evolve IP, delivers cloud-based business phone services... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
With the vast number of VoIP softphone products on the market, choosing the right solution for your phone system can be daunting. (Technically, all softphones are for VoIP service, since they’re essentially software for placing calls over the Internet.) To help make your decision easier, we’ve compiled this guide.
We’ll outline the common features of softphones and give a rundown of popular products to help you make the right decision for your business. We’ll look at:
What Is a VoIP Softphone?
Common Functions of VoIP Softphones
Benefits of VoIP Softphones
Vendor Landscape
Crucial Considerations for Buyers
What Is a VoIP Softphone?
The name says it all: software phone. Softphones are software applications that run on devices (laptops, smartphones, tablets etc.) with Internet connections and allow you to make and receive calls. Softphones are thus designed for Internet phone service, commonly known as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), rather than traditional phone service.
A VoIP softphone is perhaps easiest to understand when compared to an IP phone i.e., a hardware office phone designed to make calls over the Internet using a business VoIP service rather than traditional land lines.
Both IP phones and softphones serve as endpoints to which VoIP phone systems connect calls, but one is software and the other is hardware.
Some businesses choose to deploy softphones rather than hardware phones as phone system extensions. For instance, if your employees work remotely, it makes more sense to connect the phone system to applications on their laptops than to desk phones in an office they rarely see. Additionally, you can deploy softphones alongside desk phones and connect the same extension to both endpoints. This gives your employees more flexibility in their communications options.
Softphone-only deployments are gaining in popularity and can also help keep the costs of switching to VoIP down, since IP phones can be expensive.
Common Functions of VoIP Softphone Software
VoIP softphones often include the following core capabilities:
| Voice calling | The key functionality of softphones. Make and receive calls through your Internet connection. |
| Video calling | Place and receive video calls on devices with cameras. (Note that video calling is not the same as video conferencing, which frequently requires a more advanced application.) |
| Call history | Track incoming and outgoing calls. |
| Voicemail | Let callers leave voice messages when you’re not available. Listen to voice messages and return calls. |
| On-demand call recording | Users can frequently initiate on-demand call recording from the softphone user interface (UI). |
| Directory of contacts/presence | Just like your smartphone, a softphone has a directory of contacts. The difference is that softphones also generally display which contacts are currently online (a feature known as presence). |
| Call transferring | Softphones allow you to transfer calls to contacts in your organization. |
| Click-to-dial | Because softphones are installed on your device, they allow you to click on links on web pages and in emails in order to place calls automatically, without touching a keypad or picking up a receiver. |
More advanced softphones offer a smorgasbord of features beyond these basic capabilities, and are known as unified communications (UC) clients. Generally, these clients are offered directly via the vendor of your phone system or UC system, whereas softphones are commonly offered by third-party vendors.