[Asterisk-Users] GUI for Asterisk Configuration

[Jim Van Meggelen]

asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com wrote:
> Fellow Asterisk users,
> 
> I want to make configuration of Asterisk less of a chore.  I
> noticed that there are quite a few GUI based configuration
> tools posted on the wiki.  I am curious if there is a
> consensus on which is the best, most stable, easiest to install etc.

I would argue that there is not a consensus on the points you mentioned.
A key question you may need to consider is whether the GUI in question
is open-source or not.

There are several companies who have produced GUIs for Asterisk. Since
these are payware there are not a lot of folks who have tried them out,
and therefore very little community opinions as to their usefulness.
Nevertheless, some of these appear to be quite mature and well
developed, and may well be excellent products.

As for the open source front, Coalescent Systems recently released their
product to the community in the form of the Asterisk Management Portal.
AMP has a very active mailing list and is in a good position to become
the de facto Asterisk GUI over the next year or so. Time will tell how
it does with respect to stability (so far so good), ease of install
(well . . . it's easy enough I suppose, but very time-consuming).

Open-source Asterisk is ripe for the creation of an integrated
development environment (if I recall correctly, one is in the works - no
word on whether it will be contributed to the community or not). I
always think of Asterisk as more of a telephony scripting language than
a shrink-wrap PBX; a GUI is going to be hard-pressed to do it justice.
All of the GUIs that exist are limited in some fashion, as the designers
have had to make choices which effectively hide much of the power of
Asterisk. This is not necessarily a bad thing; it all depends on how
much flexibility you need.

To truly learn Asterisk one must learn the command line. This is true
with many/most/all Linux-based server applications. Nevertheless, having
development tools that help build robust, reliable systems is certainly
going to become increasingly desirable.

Regards,

Jim.