
Plivo - an opensource alternative to Twilio - ankeshk
http://www.plivo.org/
======
joelhaasnoot
This is great. Being situated in The Netherlands, 90% of the phone-related web
apps don't work here. I was just thinking yesterday that Twilio for Europe
might be a great startup idea.

Twilio sounds great, and some of the mashups are very interesting, but it all
doesn't work here. VOIP providers here seem to have ok prices, but horrible
UI/UX to manage everything.

~~~
colinsidoti
I believe Ericsson can be used internationally for everything Twilio does in
the states. They're a bit more corporate than Twilio, and their website is
hard to navigate, but once you get in contact with them they're more helpful.

They are not able to provide long codes (10 digit phone numbers) for messaging
in the States, but they can use long codes for messaging internationally.

In the states you're limited to Short Codes, but they do offer MMS support,
which one-ups Twilio. I believe they also have a higher send rate, but I don't
remember the specifics. Ericsson also has mobile payment support (charged to
the carrier), where Twilio does not.

My research was specifically for messaging, but there is voice functionality
as well.

Overall, Twilio is a lot more developer friendly. I think I waited something
like two weeks for a callback from Ericsson, which would never happen with
Twilio. But if you really need international phone numbers and advanced
features, take a look into Ericsson.

I use Twilio now, but I don't use Ericsson yet. Chances are my product will
end up using a combination of both, but the nature of every product is
different so do what's best for you. Twilio can text/call internationally, but
not with local numbers, which I believe makes the cost quite high on yourself
and your users. Apparently there are also other solutions I haven't looked
into yet (see other comments).

<http://www.ericsson.com>

~~~
akalsey
If you're looking for more options, there's a LOT out there. Think of all the
automated voice systems you interact with on a regular basis.

In the open source world, you could install Asterisk yourself and use
something like Adhearsion to develop your apps. Adhearsion is an open source
framework for building Asterisk applications in Ruby. <http://adhearsion.com/>

Whistle from the 2600hz project could be of interest, too.
<http://www.2600hz.org/whistle/>

To build telephony applications in Java, you can use SIP servlets, a Java
standard (look up JSR 289 and JSR 309). Because the Java standard is extremely
low-level, we open sourced the framework we use for building Java speech
applications. See Moho at <http://labs.voxeo.com/moho/> or
<https://github.com/voxeo/moho>

You can also take a look at at VoiceXML, a W3C standard for building telephony
apps. VoiceXML is how the big boys build telephony applications. There are a
number of commercial and open source VoiceXML products, and tons of hosting
companies. A search for "VoiceXML Hosting" will turn up several thousand
options. Many of which will work internationally.

And of course Tropo, as already mentioned, has an open source core as well as
a ton of other fun open source stuff. See <http://tropo.com/> and
<https://github.com/tropo/>

~~~
runT1ME
I'm a fan of Tropo and have recommended it to clients, and overall think Voxeo
is the team to beat in the telephony market. However, I feel you're
exaggerating a bit here:

>VoiceXML is how the big boys build telephony applications. There are a number
of commercial and open source VoiceXML products, and tons of hosting
companies. A search for "VoiceXML Hosting" will turn up several thousand
options. Many of which will work internationally.

VoiceXML is great for _IVR_ type applications (along with CCXML) but it is not
suited to a lot of the types of applications developers use for Twilio/Tropo.

>And of course Tropo, as already mentioned, has an open source core as well as
a ton of other fun open source stuff

This statement is true if you guys open source PRISM, your SIP server, but
until that happens (has it happened?), it's a little disingenuous to say that
Tropo's "core" is open source when it relies on a proprietary SIP server to do
all the heavy lifting.

~~~
akalsey
VoiceXML and CCXML are suited for most telephony apps. We've seen conference
calling, dating, virtual Number services, notifications, and lots more on XML
telephony platforms. Twilio and Tropo Apis are each subsets of what Vxml &
CCXML are.

Vxml and CCXML are more complex, sure. And for that reason they may not be
suited for the same developers targeted by cloud Apis.

Prism, the app server platform Tropo.com runs on, is not open source. But
because Tropo core is written to the JSR call control and media server
standards, Tropo will run in any server that implements those. Mobicents and
Sailfin are two open source options.

------
cjoh
Since it is down, this is probably useful:

<https://github.com/plivo/plivo>

~~~
nimish79
the site's up now <http://www.plivo.org>. have a look.

------
jessedhillon
Can someone explain, or point the direction to a good explanation for noobs
about how to go from setting up FreeSWITCH to actually making/receiving calls
on the PSTN? And maybe, how to get phone numbers, or place calls with a
certain caller ID?

I'd like to see a good primer on the topic but, frankly, I don't even know
what to Google for.

~~~
nimish79
\- You need to install FS on your server and run it. There's an installer for
that (Check

<http://www.plivo.org/get-started/>).

\- You need to install Plivo on the server as well. There's a separate
installer for that.

So now you have your Twilio-like instance ready.

\- To buy a number you can head to ipkall.com (free) or icall.com or
flowroute.com (paid). There are several such

services actually.

\- Once you have the number, you can just point it to your server that is
running FreeSWITCH and Plivo.

\- You can buy minutes for usage from a third party such as IVOX VoIP
(ivoxvoip.com). Again, there are several such

providers out there.

\- Now, go ahead and deploy your Plivo app (just as you would deploy a Twilio
app).

I hope this makes it clear.

~~~
krobertson
You know of any recommendations for something a little more in depth? Maybe a
book recommendation, if not much is online?

Often times, the terminology is confusing and difficult to know where to start
and ease in.

------
reustle
Isn't most of Twilio's technology open source already?

<http://www.openvbx.org>

~~~
joelhaasnoot
The source is here <https://github.com/plivo/plivo>

It looks like Twilio's lowest layer isn't completely open source. OpenVBX
still requires a Twilio account.

~~~
armored
Whereas Plivo's lowest layer is FreeSWITCH, a pretty solid base. I'm pretty
stoked about this, if only the page would come up.

~~~
nimish79
Hey, <http://www.plivo.org> is up!

------
billpaetzke
This is great news. I work at Leads360 and we use Twilio extensively in our
B2B web app. We'll definitely take a look at this and perhaps even use and
contribute to the project.

Speaking of which, we are looking for a developer with telephony experience
(i.e. Twilio, Tropo, Plivo, etc). In addition to working on our product, you
would also have the opportunity to contribute to the Plivo project, assuming
we switch to that. The position is either senior software eng or lead software
eng depending on experience, etc. The position is full-time, local-only in El
Segundo, CA (just south of LAX in Los Angeles). Email Bill at
bpaetzke@leads360.com, if interested.

------
armored
Google cache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:dmMi424...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:dmMi424-DhYJ:www.plivo.org/+plivo&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1)

------
brianjolney
how does this hook into a phone system to actually function/process messages?
This is why I use Twilio.

Website was pretty confusing

~~~
nimish79
Plivo works exactly like Twilio. You just need to set it up on your server and
then run your apps off it just as you do w Twilio.

~~~
endtime
The part I'm wondering is how I get a phone number pointed at my server in the
first place.

~~~
nimish79
Well if you're in the US and want phone numbers, there are several free
providers such as ipkall.com and paid ones such as icall.com, flowroute.com.
In case of the free providers, you won't even have to bear the cost of
incoming calls. That's a solid advantage you'll have if you use Plivo. Also,
there are hundreds of such number providers around. Just google for them. Once
you have the number, you can just point it to your server that is running
FreeSWITCH and Plivo.

~~~
endtime
Cool. Your overview should probably mention this.

------
chanux
Tropo is also open source. <https://github.com/tropo>

~~~
mc_
That's a bit disingenuous. The API clients are open source. The actual service
is not. If a developer builds on top of Tropo, they are locked into Tropo's
pricing and servers. Same with Twilio.

If you want to be on the eye-bleeding edge of scalable VoIP, check out Whistle
(<http://www.2600hz.org/about-whistle/>). Host your APIs (REST and AMQP),
choose your carriers, and build your whapps on a completely open-source
project. We will gladly host and/or manage your servers as well.

Whereas Twilio/Tropo/Plivio give you ways to manage just call handling,
Whistle aims to expose phone provisioning, call handling, server and cluster
management, and more. We are open sourcing the PBX tools, a trunking platform
(see it live at <http://store.2600hz.com>), among others that are in
development.

That said, we're really excited with plivio's release and hope to either work
with them to integrate their app as a whapp on our platform, or fork the
project and do it ourselves (if we ever have time)!

~~~
akalsey
The core that actually runs your applications is open source. Runs on any java
SIP servlet app server. You can run Tropo apps without touching Tropo.com at
all or paying us for anything. There are a number of companies doing this
today.

We did this precisely because we wanted to prevent lock in. We want your
business, but if we suck, you should be able to go elsewhere.

------
CrossWired
The biggest answer that Twilio and Tropo answer is running the voice services
in the cloud.

If you've ever tried to get any SIP based product to run virtualized you will
know that is no easy feat, and not recommended for production:
<http://wiki.freeswitch.org/wiki/Amazon_EC2>

~~~
runT1ME
I disagree, getting a SIP server up and running in EC2 is no harder than doing
it on it's own. Unless you're doing mixing/conferencing, you shouldn't see any
delays from the virtualization.

~~~
mc_
This is especially true if you run FreeSWITCH in bypass media mode. If all
you're processing is the SIP signaling, you can put a lot more calls on a
virtual server AND usually see better quality calls as the RTP is typically
sent on a more direct route to/from the carrier to the endpoint.

------
catshirt
you mean, i need a _phone_?

~~~
nimish79
Not sure what you're referring to... but yes, you need to buy a phone number.
Head to ipkall.com (free) or icall.com or flowroute.com (paid). There are
several such services out there. Once you have the number, you can just point
it to your server that is running FreeSWITCH and Plivo.

------
skrebbel
Site seems down.

If getting HN'ed already kills a service like this, it's not very reliable.
Not something I'd want to depend on for this kind of service.

~~~
akalsey
It's not a service -- it's open source software you download and run on your
own servers. Their web site or ability to keep it online has nothing to do
with the product.

