Group:Skype Replacement - LibrePlanet
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Group:
Skype Replacement
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Real-time voice and video chat is an item on the FSF's High Priority Projects list.
Be sure to check our general list for remote communication tools:
Contents
Protocol, not client
Central Registry?
Adoption
Free clients
Personal experiences
5.1
Ekiga
5.2
Linphone
5.3
Jitsi
5.4
Empathy
5.5
Tox
Related links
Protocol, not client
We need to make the discussion about protocols, not clients, (think how people say “send me an email” rather than “send me a Hotmail”).
The primary functionality we aim to replace is real-time:
voice calls (to computers)
video calls
text chat
voice calls to plain old telephones (via a SIP gateway or similar)
Anywhere over the Internet (or beyond), with as many people per conversation, logging, etc. whatever other features (clarify this section as necessary).
The free protocols currently available to do this are.
Voice
Video
Text
Notes
SIP
Yes
Yes?
Yes
Sessions?
XMPP/Jingle
Yes
Yes
Yes
Full presence, group chat, widely deployed.
Mumble
Yes
No
Yes
Has positional audio support for integration with some video games as well as an overlay.
WebRTC
Yes
Yes
No
Not a protocol, but JavaScript APIs for media and raw data between web browsers.
Tox
Yes
Yes
Yes
Central Registry?
Creating and maintaining a central directory service with presence indication. Perhaps the freenode folks would not object if the tools integrated automatically with their network to set up users and share set-up signalling. Once set up, the call data can go direct. Freenode supports
client SSL certificates
Adoption
Apart from technical problems with free Skype replacements, there is a “network effect” problem preventing free protocols (and clients) from becoming popular.
This might be solved by explaining the problems of Skype to the people and providing the stories about injustice concerning this software.
Free clients
Lists exist already:
Do we need more information? If so it can go here.
SIP?
XMPP?
Mumble?
Tox
WebRTC
Active Development?
Operating System Support
License
Notes
Linphone
Yes
No
No
No
No
Yes
GNU/Linux, Windows, OSX, iOS, Android
GPLv2+
ZRTP Encryption
GNU Jami
Yes
No
No
No
No
Yes
GNU/Linux, Windows, OSX, iOS, Android, AndroidTV
GPLv3
Peer-to-peer, end-to-end encrypted, with
IAX2
support
Jitsi
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
Yes
GNU/Linux, Windows, OSX
LGPL
ZRTP Encrypted Media, OTR, Conference
Gajim
No
Yes
No
No
No
Yes
GNU/Linux, Windows, OSX
LGPL
OTR
Ekiga
Yes
No
No
No
No
No
GNU/Linux, Windows XP, H323
GPLv2+
Empathy
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
Yes
GNU/Linux
GPL
GNOME default
Psi
No
No
GNU/Linux, Windows, OSX
Yate
Mumble
No
No
Yes
No
No
Yes
GNU/Linux, OSX, Windows, iOS, Android¹
BSD
Server and client software
QRadioLink
No
No
Yes
No
No
Yes
GNU/Linux (audio only, video planned)
GPL
Pidgin
No?
Yes
No?
No
No
Yes
GNU/Linux, Windows (no calls)
GPL
Twinkle
Yes
No?
No
No
No
GNU/Linux
GPL
Asterisk
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
Yes
GNU/Linux
GPL
Server software, VoIP PBX, connect SIP clients and hardware phones
sipX
Jitsi Meet
No
No
No
No
Yes
Yes
Browser-based
GPL
Web-server software
Talky
No
No
No
No
Yes
Yes
Browser-based
Web-server software
Openmeetings
No
No
No
No
Yes
Yes
Browser-based, Flash, WebRTC
Apache 2.0
Web-server software
Big Blue Button
No
No
No
No
Yes
Yes
Browser-based, Flash, WebRTC
GPL
Web-server software
Tox
No
No
No
Yes
No
Yes
GNU/Linux, BSD, Windows, OSX, Android
GPLv3
Peer-to-peer, encrypted
¹: Android has free third-party clients like
Plumble
Personal experiences
Ekiga
I have used Ekiga in the past and had good luck with it, but only with other Ekiga users on GNU/Linux --
Mattl
15:47, 14 May 2012 (EDT)
Ekiga used to work fine for me on the local network, but failed to connect to another user behind NAT firewall. It does not support UPnP mechanism provided by many modern routers and used by almost every torrent-client and by Skype as well. --
v_2e
05:49, 24 May 2012 (EDT)
Linphone
Used Linphone for video telephony with my own Asterisk server and the linphone.org service. Lightweight application, audio and video quite good.
Conrad
22:11
Jitsi
Successfully used to three-way audio-video chat with a pair of Mac users. H.264 only, but VP8 support soon! --
Mattl
15:47, 14 May 2012 (EDT)
VP8 support has landed. --
Johns
11:20, 30 May 2013 (EDT)
Use Jitsi for personal and collaboration purposes.
The good:
impressive feature set:
XMPP, IRC, ICQ, Yahoo, Facebook, SIP
encrypted audio, video and screen sharing (remote control)
OTR chat encryption
NAT traversal - ICE and Jingle Nodes
The bad:
severe stability issues:
connect problems - sometimes no audio, sometimes no video
audio and video drop outs.
The ugly:
user interface:
incoming text message catches focus
but doesn't stay on the screen
Conrad
22:11 15 Dec 2014 (CET)
Empathy
Empathy is the GNOME default IM and SIP client.
The good:
Empathy is further improved in Fedora 18/GNOME 3.6. I am able to make voice calls on an XMPP network from Empathy to Empathy and from Empathy to the Google Talk desktop client. -- agajan 23:34, 14 May 2013 (EDT)
The bad:
Empathy doesn't do/support any kind of E2E encryption.
Mimi89999
(27/09/2016)
Google browser plugin interop requires a non-free codec (H.264). Video quality is poor without this codec when calling from Empathy to Empathy.
Even with the new Xiph codec?
Is that issue still actual?
Mimi89999
(27/09/2016)
Worked fine on the local network – failed when NAT involved
Conrad
22:31 15 Dec 2014 (CET)
Is that still an issue in the latest version?
Mimi89999
(27/09/2016)
I started to install Empathy on Debian Squeeze, using Synaptic. However, marking Empathy for installation resulted in Synaptic telling me that over 120 other packages were required, starting with brasero, brasero-common, cdrdao, cheese-common ... This is lunacy. Either there is a gross mistake in Empathy's packaging, or it really requires most of Gnome, which rules it out for me (I use Xfce).
The Debian stable version is now Jessie. Is that issue still actual?
Mimi89999
(27/09/2016)
Tox
I've been using Tox for a while on GNU/Linux and moved a few people to it. I'm now using it as one of my only forms of instant messaging instead of XMPP.
Jookia
08:42, 23 November 2014 (EST)
The good:
Peer to peer with trustless relay servers if not possible.
Uses OTR-level encryption between peers.
Group chats and calls.
Supports group voice calls.
A range of
alpha quality clients are available
and
more are coming
The bad (but planned):
Echo cancellation isn't implemented.
Multidevice support for one ID isn't possible yet.
Only an experimental Android client.
Core not audited.
The ugly:
iOS support might need reimplementation due to GPL not allowing restrictions. However, it should probably be possible through jailbreaking.
No discussion of telephone network usage.
User: beccon:beccon
30 December 2014 (CET): I evaluated utox on different GNU/Linux machines:
Good:
Works out of the box. It takes a while to get someone on the roster - but once confirmed then text, file transfer, video and audio work
Easy to handle interface
Not so good:
High bandwidth consumption when idling. (some Megabyte per hour - making it not so suitable for mobile use) Obviously systemic - the client has to do the server's workload too.
User: usrname:usrname
17 May 2016: I have used Tox with the qTox client on a Libreboot X200 running Trisquel 7:
The Good:
Pretty easy install and straight forward to use.
Audio is very good quality without latency.
Text, file transfer, screen capture and screen sharing works great.
832 emoticons :P
That it's peer-to-peer!
The bad:
Video was lagging, for SOME reason - not necessarily because of Tox.
Overall: this can definitely be the first free skype replacement, but it still needs a security audit I think.
User:IShareFreedom
28 de diciembre 2021: He evaluado Tox en GNU y he podido hablar con otros mayormente con el cliente qTox:
Lo bueno:
Fácil de poner en marcha.
Conexión P2P robusta, funciona sin dificultades permitiendo la comunicación sin fallos aparentes.
Transmisión de archivos sin límite aparente.
Permite conexión mediante SOCKS5 (Proxy para Tor)
Lo malo:
La deficiencia está en que las características como participar de grupos o video llamadas funciona idealmente sobre clientes de Escritorio/Laptops. Por esta razón recomiendo el cliente qTox y si estás en
teléfono
recomiendo el cliente aTox.
Related links
WikiSuite offers Rich Realtime Unified Communications (XMPP + WebRTC + SIP), with PBX Phone System with Voicemail to Email, Realtime Collaborative of Text, Drawing and Scrum Board (Beta), Presence / Chat (XMPP), Co-Browsing (Beta), Video Conference and Recording, Remote Control of Keyboard and Mouse (Alpha), Screen Sharing, Slideshow. Installation guide:
This page was a
featured resource
in June 2018.
This page was a
featured resource
in November 2021.
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