3CX vs. Grandstream UCM series IP PBXs

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
3CX
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Cyprus based company 3CX offers an IP PBX phone system.
$1.08
per user/per month
Grandstream UCM series IP PBXs
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
Grandstream presents the UCM series of IP PBX appliances as powerful yet easy to manage voice, video, data, and mobility communications platform, whichoffer an extensive set of unified communication features in an easy to manage on premise solution with no licensing fees, upgrade fees or costs per features. The Grandstream UCMs range from small and medium business deployments to small and medium enterprise solutions.N/A
Pricing
3CXGrandstream UCM series IP PBXs
Editions & Modules
Pro
$1.08
per user/per month
Enterprise
$1.31
per user/per month
Standard
Free
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
3CXGrandstream UCM series IP PBXs
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPrice displayed is based on 25 users. 3CX pricing is based on the number of simultaneous calls your business requires or in other words, how many calls your system needs to support at once. Unlike other PBX vendors there is no per extension cost.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
3CXGrandstream UCM series IP PBXs
Top Pros

No answers on this topic

Top Cons

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Best Alternatives
3CXGrandstream UCM series IP PBXs
Small Businesses
Sangoma Asterisk
Sangoma Asterisk
Score 8.3 out of 10
Sangoma Asterisk
Sangoma Asterisk
Score 8.3 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Sangoma Asterisk
Sangoma Asterisk
Score 8.3 out of 10
Sangoma Asterisk
Sangoma Asterisk
Score 8.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Sangoma Asterisk
Sangoma Asterisk
Score 8.3 out of 10
Sangoma Asterisk
Sangoma Asterisk
Score 8.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
3CXGrandstream UCM series IP PBXs
Likelihood to Recommend
7.9
(14 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
5.4
(2 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
3CXGrandstream UCM series IP PBXs
Likelihood to Recommend
3CX
In many scenarios decision is driven by budget and compared to other solutions at the time of purchase [3CX] was simply the cheapest solution for what it has to offer. If you are looking for integrations, extensibility, and advanced functionalities, this might not be a solution for you. At the time of use (and this may have changed by now), there was a lack of APIs, CLI commands, and similar so nothing could be automated with the system. There are ways of importing data through CSV but automation would solve us so much time and support calls if we were able to connect with other systems.
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Grandstream Networks
As a PBX the UCM PBX can be cover the needs of all companies without exception. We think it is really a great and flexible solution that covers all the IP telephone needs a company may have. When we were researching the market to buy our pair of UCM 6308, we had also hoped to use it as a replacement for our Skype for Business installation, so to say to use it as our main solution for video conferencing. After trying to do this for a couple of years we would say that you can use Wave for video conferencing and I personally like it, but it is not well suited for bigger companies for using it as the main video conferencing solution. On the other hand, there are very few PBXs even offering a video conferencing solution and their solutions are not better that the UCM's solution!
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Pros
3CX
  • Simplicity: Using a single 3CX interface we can manage every phone and extension used throughout our company.
  • Flexibility: There are a wide variety of options to configure each extension and phone. Changing anything after the hardware is deployed is very easy.
  • Portability: Phones with 3CX can be easily moved or repurposed within an office or at remote locations, including users' homes. The mobile app allows users to use their office extension anywhere without exposing their cell number.
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Grandstream Networks
  • Solid, reliable products
  • Simple to configure and manage
  • Compatible with ONVIF for use with 3rd party systems
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Cons
3CX
  • I would like to be able to see direct-dial numbers on the handsets. Currently that is not possible but that would be a nice feature.
  • You need an SBC per location, which can be a point of failure.
  • You also need a server that might get disconnected, which is another point of failure.
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Grandstream Networks
  • The cluster implementation does not work on all network modes. Would be great if this was improved.
  • Wave on mobile phones works in a different way than on desktops and this makes it hard to set it up for use on the firewalls, as it requires different and more permissions than the desktop app. For example is one receives an invitation per email on the mobile phone and wants to participate in a Wave meeting as a guest, the still need access to the network ports needed to login the extension (while they only need / want to join the meeting as anonymous users). On the desktop app this is not needed.
  • There is a limit on the number of 1 device per connection type. We have an extension used in the maintenance department and is shared by 6 users. We were able to install it on 1 PC, 1 Wi-Fi phone and 1 Android shared mobile phone. We would like to install it on a second shared mobile phone, but this is not allowed by the UCM policy. We could use anther extension to do this, but the maintenance department does not want this. They want to accept calls with problem reports only on one extension. Would be great to be able to install the same extension on more than 1 Android devices.
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Likelihood to Renew
3CX
No answers on this topic
Grandstream Networks
We are very happy with our UCB 6308 pair. We have some issues that we would like to see improved, but the UCM 6308 does more than cover the main functionality it is intended for and has given us the needed solution for our remote workers.
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Usability
3CX
No answers on this topic
Grandstream Networks
Although we are very happy with our pair of UCM 6308, we still think there are some things that can be improved to make this a prefect product! Have mentioned the main points we think that should be improved on other parts of the review.
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Support Rating
3CX
The 3CX Phone System is only a five because while they provide set-up/how-to/Q and A documents to help your district or company get started, they do not offer support for free. The documents provided, though, are good enough for you to get you up and running. We also found a good source of help through a sip trunk provider, which was a 3CX reseller provider.
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Grandstream Networks
Grandstream almost always have a first response on any ticket within 24 hours, which is impressive. They do care to listen about customer problems and needs and are open suggestions / feature reuests, as long as there is a potential for the suggested change to benefit a big enough number of customers.
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Implementation Rating
3CX
No answers on this topic
Grandstream Networks
The implementation was concluded very fast, with minimal downtime.
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Alternatives Considered
3CX
The main differences between 8x8, Inc. and 3CX is pricing and ease of use in my opinion. The 3CX system uses annual based pricing plans based on of simultaneous calls your company needs, not the number of extensions/users and offers a free plan. 8x8, Inc. charges per extension with different plans. We currently have 19 extensions so the 3CX system makes more sense for us, however, if your company only has a few extensions you may want to throughly consider both options. In my experience, it was difficult to add new extensions and phones with 8x8 because at least at that time we had 8x8 I could not add anything on the web admin. I had to call a sales rep which took a lot more time. Also, if you didn't purchase a phone and/or headset directly from 8x8 at a usually higher price than Amazon for example then you would have to spend anywhere from 30 minutes to hours on the phone with 8x8 tech support to program the phone to work with the 8x8 system so adding a new extension could turn into a long ordeal. I can easily add new extensions on 3CX directly in the web cpanel. Granted, if you are actually adding a new phone number you would need to purchase that number from a company like ATT first before adding it to 3CX. The difference between a phone number and an extension would be a phone number allows a customer to call in directly using that number. The extension would require the customer to call the main business number then be transferred to the extension. 3CX provides a list of supported phone models on their website
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Grandstream Networks
We were considering a solution from Alcatel at first. Very stable implementation for sure, as there are no frequent updates and no new features. Also no conferencing solution was included. A separate solution was offered for extra cost. So the choice was between a very stable PBX which would be pretty much unchanged for ever and a dynamic solution that would constantly grow. Without any doubt we opted for the ever growing / changing solution, knowing this would cost us in minor problems / instabilities. We did NOT regret this decision. So having opted for a growing and constantly developed solution we also look into the solution provided by Yeastar. By comparing the 2 solutions it was obvious that the Grandstream UCM 6308 was the best solution for us.
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Return on Investment
3CX
  • 3CX has a lot to offer for a very low cost as its business model is based on simultaneous calls and not per device. It's very cost effective and very affordable.
  • As the 3CX server does not require a high-performance server to run, with the Public Cloud option, it might allow even further savings.
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Grandstream Networks
  • Low-cost initial investment, minimal recurring costs
  • Used by everyone in our company and easy to adopt
  • Runs 24/7 and is reliable
  • Allows our school to manage access control easily and efficiently
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ScreenShots

3CX Screenshots

Screenshot of Video ConferencingScreenshot of Advanced Contact Center ReportingScreenshot of Management DashboardScreenshot of Live ChatScreenshot of 3CX AppScreenshot of See the Status of Your Colleagues