RingCentral RingEX vs Asterisk

Fit:

Migration notes

Can rebuild calling, routing, IVR, queues and voicemail using the Asterisk engine. RingEX meetings/chat apps, turnkey administration and integrations are separate workflows; plan endpoint provisioning, carrier/number migration and custom integration work. No verified automatic configuration or call-history importer.

Sources: www.asterisk.org, www.asterisk.org, www.ringcentral.com · checked 2026-10-21

RingCentral RingEXPaid incumbent

Entry priceUSD 20 / seat / month

Pricing modelper-seat, billed annual

OwnerRingCentral, Inc.

Core US list price per user/month paid annually; official search-indexed pricing card. Canonical page extraction omitted the card; regional offers and add-ons differ. Source

RingCentral RingEX plans reviewed
Core	entry	USD 30 / user / mo
Advanced	business	USD 35 / user / mo

AsteriskOpen-source alternative

Fit for RingCentral RingEX

License

GNU General Public License v2.0 The GNU GPL is the most widely used free software license and has a strong copyleft requirement. When distributing derived works, the source code of the work must be made available under the same license. There are multiple variants of the GNU GPL, each with different requirements. May Commercial useModificationDistributionPrivate use Must License and copyright noticeState changesDisclose sourceSame license No LiabilityWarranty Summary from GitHub's choosealicense.com

Paid-feature tier C

Self-host

Paid-feature limits1 noted

Asterisk plans reviewed
Asterisk core	self-hosted core	Free
G.729 codec add-on	optional proprietary codec license	Not established

What you may give up

Sangoma G.729 transcoding codec is licensed per concurrent channel ($8 USD listed); G.729-dependent recording, conferencing and DTMF processing require decoding rather than passthrough.

PSTN calling requires carrier connectivity, phone numbers and applicable usage charges; these are service costs, not source-code gates.
Self-operation requires server administration, SIP endpoints, dialplan configuration and integrations.

Tier C: Core Asterisk source is OSI GPLv2 with documented linking exceptions; Certified Asterisk source remains freely usable. Tier C reflects separately licensed same-vendor ordinary voice functionality: the G.729 transcoding binary is paid per channel, which affects media-processing workflows when that codec is required. This does not imply all calling requires paid modules; other codecs are available. Asterisk is a developer engine, not a turnkey business calling workspace. First-party PBXact Cloud is a separate Asterisk-derived managed PBX, not source-edition parity. Other vendor binary add-ons require their own license checks. License source

What running it takes

ntpd/ntpsec, chronyd or systemd-timesyncd

Hover or focus an icon for its name. Dashed means not established; struck through means no; grouped icons are alternatives.

Developer telephony server, not turnkey calling workspace. Embedded SQLite3 internal database. External realtime SQL/ODBC optional and version/module-specific; static dialplans do not require external PostgreSQL/MySQL. Module build dependencies resolved through configure/menuselect/install_prereq. Infrastructure and staff time are not priced here; this page does not compare total cost.