CallFire vs. NetFortris (discontinued)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
CallFire
Score 9.7 out of 10
N/A
CallFire is a VoIP and messaging solution designed for both external B2C interactions and internal company use. It includes features such as text messaging, call tracking, voice broadcasting, and an interactive voice response (IVR) system. Subscription pricing starts at $99 per month.
$99
per month
NetFortris (discontinued)
Score 6.4 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
NetFortris, and the former Fonality, provided business phone systems using Polycom and Yealink IP phones. In 2022 the company was acquired by Sangoma. NetFortris and Fonality UCaaS and other services are no longer available.N/A
Pricing
CallFireNetFortris (discontinued)
Editions & Modules
Lite
$99.00
per month
Startup
$199.00
per month
Grow
$299.00
per month
Pro
$599.00
per month
Hybrid Premise Purchase
Varies
Varies
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
CallFireNetFortris (discontinued)
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
CallFireNetFortris (discontinued)
Considered Both Products
CallFire
Chose CallFire
EZ Texting... it's fine but more expensive. They do the same thing.
Chose CallFire
We also use CallRail in our agency but find that most of our needs are met by CallFire for less money.
Chose CallFire
Previously we used Vitelity, but its tracking capabilities are more limited.
Chose CallFire
We considered Trello before deciding on CallFire. Trello is a good service that seems to do much of what CallFire does, however we wanted to avoid the labor-hours necessary to get Trello up to speed, as it is very technically involved. We didn't want to hire any additional …
Chose CallFire
CallFire has a pricing structure that is attractive to us as a small business. The "pay as you use" options helps us keep our overhead low, especially with so many softwares already in our tech stack. It's a tremendous value for the cost!
Chose CallFire
I have not personally used any similar products.
Chose CallFire
CallFire has adapted and changed internally ever since I [have] used it. It is has become, quicker, cleaner and much easier to use. I haven't used any other systems, however I thoroughly enjoy the efficiency and ease to build custom campaigns in minutes. I highly recommend …
Chose CallFire
I haven't used any other products, but I am so pleased with CallFire that I will continue using this program.
NetFortris (discontinued)
Chose NetFortris (discontinued)
As stated, I inherited the Fonality on-premise server(s) I support. The organization's principals have requested staying with this system due to its low cost of ownership. Comparing to other on-premise systems, such as a generic Asterisk system, it offers some support …
Chose NetFortris (discontinued)
I'm a hardware guy, always had panasonic and siemens PBXs. You can't compare them to Fonality. It is so complex to program them and with less functionalities, it is a waste of money and time in my humble opinion. I've also installed my own Asterix servers and used to admin …
Chose NetFortris (discontinued)
Fonality had the features and functions we were looking for in a competitively priced bundle. We weren't looking for phone hardware and wanted a simple to use the soft phone function, and we appreciate the collaboration and call monitoring tools that were included in the …
Chose NetFortris (discontinued)
For the services we required, Core Dial was the easy choice. They offered all of the solutions we required in a single place, at a very cost-effective price. Overall, we are satisfied with our choice.
Chose NetFortris (discontinued)
I've only used fonality. I used to work with it at a previous job before I became a business owner.
Chose NetFortris (discontinued)
At the time, we were interested in a site-based solution and Fonality's hosted service was not available yet. Fonality was much more cost-effective than the other solutions we reviewed, while still providing the features we were interested in.
Chose NetFortris (discontinued)
We felt Fonality's Cloud PBX and HUD were difference makers.
Chose NetFortris (discontinued)
If you can [get] over the initial install, Fonality is right up there with the best, with some improvements it can be even better than ones I have had used in the past.
Chose NetFortris (discontinued)
Cost savings was the initial and primary driver, although I have found that the quality of the equipment provided with initial service was superior. The functionality and ability to customize have been better compared to my experience with Vonage. The HUD portal is not …
Chose NetFortris (discontinued)
Fonality was very comparable to Comcast as far as product offering and service, but much more affordable. Avaya was a different system altogether but was much more expensive.
Chose NetFortris (discontinued)
Intermedia was our old system set up by my predecessor. This system was crashing often during our high season which is what pushed us to look into a new phone system. For Intermedia, call quality was poor and the phone system was set up just like your old grandma's phone …
Chose NetFortris (discontinued)
Fonality is competitive, still room for improvement and overall quality
Chose NetFortris (discontinued)
Cloud PBX migrates the worries of catastrophic events (floods, power outages, building fire, etc) away from the business to a secondary platform with greater tools to combat service uptime (backup generators, for example). It also means that potential upgrades to the platform …
Chose NetFortris (discontinued)
I have not used any other VoIP system that I have been paying for. I hope that Fonality proves itself enough to where I will not have to switch. So far, for the price and the functionality, this is my recommendation for small businesses. I might recommend going with a more high …
Chose NetFortris (discontinued)
We selected Fonality for ease of use and the HUD portal. One of the partners in the business has used Fonality in the past and had great confidence in it's success for this new endeavor. It has proven to be successful thus far and I hope to be able to update this review in a …
Chose NetFortris (discontinued)
Feature wise they matched up well. I don't know from a quality standpoint as we only evaluated 8x8 but never used their service.
Chose NetFortris (discontinued)
Not sure how to rank it with other products but we selected it due to features and cost effectiveness.
Chose NetFortris (discontinued)
Fonality was chosen by someone other than me.
Chose NetFortris (discontinued)
I weighed the features offered along with the cost and felt, at that time, that Fonality would be the best choice.
Chose NetFortris (discontinued)
I think we've pretty well covered all the reasons I prefer Fonality over Verizon VCE in the other sections, and what Fonality does better. I will add that what led me to Fonality was a lot of searching out top-rated VoIP companies, and running down what features they offered at …
Features
CallFireNetFortris (discontinued)
Cloud PBX
Comparison of Cloud PBX features of Product A and Product B
CallFire
7.6
Ratings
4% below category average
NetFortris (discontinued)
7.8
Ratings
2% below category average
Hosted PBX6.00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Multi-level Interactive Voice Response (IVR)9.00 Ratings6.00 Ratings
User templates7.00 Ratings6.80 Ratings
Call reports7.20 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Directory of employee names9.00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Call Management
Comparison of Call Management features of Product A and Product B
CallFire
9.3
Ratings
12% above category average
NetFortris (discontinued)
7.4
Ratings
11% below category average
Answering rules8.00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Call recording10.00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Call park8.50 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Call screening10.00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Message alerts10.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
VoIP system collaboration
Comparison of VoIP system collaboration features of Product A and Product B
CallFire
10.0
Ratings
23% above category average
NetFortris (discontinued)
7.5
Ratings
5% below category average
Video conferencing10.00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Audio conferencing10.00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Mobile apps
Comparison of Mobile apps features of Product A and Product B
CallFire
8.3
Ratings
5% above category average
NetFortris (discontinued)
9.0
Ratings
13% above category average
Mobile app for iOS8.50 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Mobile app for Android8.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
CallFireNetFortris (discontinued)
Small Businesses
CloudTalk
CloudTalk
Score 7.5 out of 10
CloudTalk
CloudTalk
Score 7.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
CloudTalk
CloudTalk
Score 7.5 out of 10
CloudTalk
CloudTalk
Score 7.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Cisco Business Edition 7000 (discontinued)
Cisco Business Edition 7000 (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Cisco Business Edition 7000 (discontinued)
Cisco Business Edition 7000 (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
CallFireNetFortris (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
9.4
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(0 ratings)
8.8
(0 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
7.6
(0 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.2
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.8
(0 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
9.7
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
8.1
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
CallFireNetFortris (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
If you need to find a test candidate for your client quickly, this is one of the best ways. Pull yourself a hot list of a couple hundred potential candidates and load them in to CallFire. Then get ready to hit about 50-60 calls per hour. You should have a great test candidate for your client in about 24 hours! It's amazing how quickly you can show your clients the true speed of your company.
Read full review
Following up with leads and prospects with its Click to Dial feature makes Fonality an effective tool to a sales organization. Misdials and wrong numbers are virtually eradicated by this feature. In addition to saving a few seconds for every call, you add time to your day and are able to conduct more business throughout the year. The Polycom phones are a little basic and finding missed calls is a little difficult. Also, the HUD is a little confusing. Depending on how you dial or how the call comes into the office, the call log may only show your extension instead of the external number being contacted.
Read full review
Pros
  • CallFire has amazing organization as far as categories and campaigns and all aspects go.
  • It is very easy to use and understand! Very user friendly.
  • Customer service and help is awesome! There have been some times when I have needed assistance and they were always so quick to reply.
Read full review
  • Customer service is outstanding! They were quick to solve any issue we had.
  • During set up the Fonality staff member did not close out our set up ticket until we were completely satisfied and ready to use the system on our own.
  • We needed a cordless system to use in our small office and it works great!
  • I love being able to keep the Fonality line at my desk and then pass it off to an attorney when my work day ends. It has just been a perfect set up.
Read full review
Cons
  • The services are easy to use and robust, but there is room for improvement. Unfortunately, not much has changed over the last 2 years of use. There haven't been any new features or innovations in that time.
  • API integration and automation is not easy for most folks to jump into and there is very little technical support or documentation to take advantage of such features.
  • The standard reports are generally sufficient, but there isn't any customization or intelligence available.
Read full review
  • Bugginess - Some things just really need some tweaking. I had to get very creative with my call routing and hold music, because the in-queue announcements don't work right at all. For example, even set to 'play once' it would loop the 'you are the first caller' announcement over and over, and cause call drops. Or my caller-name ID, which shows the registered user's name on each line on outgoing calls, even though it's not set to such anywhere in the CP settings.
  • Support - I'll give them 50/50 on this. My experience with Verizon VCE was everyone playing hot potato with issues and saying it was the responsibility of another department, meaning several phone calls and lots of hold time. Fonality doesn't have that issue, I've never really been passed around or blown off. However, some of the 'offshore' CS reps are... wow. I spent about half a dozen emails back and forth with two of them, trying to figure out why queues I deleted from the CP randomly and consistently reappeared in the HUD. Most of those emails were spent trying to explain that no, my issue was NOT that I wanted to create those queues again in the CP.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
There is no reason not to, it has proven effective in the usage
Read full review
We've already made a deep investment in the system hardware. We wouldn't be interested in another system at this point! And by the look of my colleagues faces when they see the HUD, I don't think we'd want to switch to a system that would limit us or take away any of these features! We may look at putting the server in the cloud, should internet outages prove to be such a common issue that it is preventing our other locations from functioning smoothly
Read full review
Usability
No answers on this topic
When the system works it is wonderful. But I feel the sluggish UI and web interface really kill most of what is good about this product. Other than that the system works like a charm and is very easy to learn the administrative portion of the platform.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
No answers on this topic
Fonality has been available to us 99% of the time. There have rarely been any lengthy outages. If any issues do occur, their support staff is available around the clock to help. This is important, since communication is a big part in our company and availability of the phone system is important in maintaining this reliability
Read full review
Performance
No answers on this topic
Fonality's performance is excellent. The phones work flawlessly and the calls are clear. It is a well put-together system that does not need daily support. It is not complex from a user standpoint, as most of our staff are quick to learn how to use the phones. More systems should strive to work as well as Fonality's
Read full review
Support Rating
No answers on this topic
Because of their customer support and their attention for details in our problems that we face during our initial stage. We simply love fonality just for the way we are treated when we reach them with our fonality issues - they take it seriously and resolve it as early as possible and the most important part is we dont need to keep on insisting them to do so.
Read full review
In-Person Training
No answers on this topic
Training was provided by the in-house IT administrator. Fonality was able to provide support to the admin, who then assisted the users. It went smoothly and all the details and functions of the system were made available to the office staff. Any questions were answered promptly and if any issues did arise, Fonality was available to answer them
Read full review
Online Training
No answers on this topic
Training was excellent, but most of what they had was webinars and not real world situation for our company's need. It would be better to have them remote in my local computer and test my system using inbound / outbound calls. This would have made it easier to learn and more relevant
Read full review
Implementation Rating
No answers on this topic
Everything from the installation to the implementation has been great with Fonality, there is a lot of freedom to how the system will operate but the freedom comes at a cost of more technical experience to make sure it is configured correctly. The staff is very helpful can will make sure that the system is setup correctly and work perfectly.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
We considered Trello before deciding on CallFire. Trello is a good service that seems to do much of what CallFire does, however we wanted to avoid the labor-hours necessary to get Trello up to speed, as it is very technically involved. We didn't want to hire any additional developers just to get Trello set up and maintained. With CallFire, it was very intuitive and easy to setup quickly.
Read full review
I'm a hardware guy, always had panasonic and siemens PBXs. You can't compare them to Fonality. It is so complex to program them and with less functionalities, it is a waste of money and time in my humble opinion. I've also installed my own Asterix servers and used to admin Avaya Enterprise level PBXs and I have a special part in my heart for them but when we started to search for a solution for our new building, Fonality rose among the other services like Vonage. Fonality is the perfect solution for any business that uses Telefone as a marketing and sales platform.
Read full review
Scalability
No answers on this topic
It is easy to scale this system, as long as you have the proper technical staff available to support it. Adding users and phones is straightforward. The main work involves having the physical network in place and configuring the networking equipment. Overall, it is not that difficult as long as all of this is in place.
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • I sent out a broadcast message pretty deep in our data base, well three years out. I had one customer come in and buy thanking me for contacting her.
  • Our holiday season was up 35% over last year, this year we used CallFire more than we did in the past.
Read full review
  • Fonality - VOIP features have allowed our staff to be more effective in communicating with their constituents both within and outside the organization
  • Fonality resolved a bunch of call restriction issues with student calling capabilities we were having with our previous phone service
  • Fonality has enabled us to use much cheaper carrier services.
Read full review
ScreenShots

NetFortris (discontinued) Screenshots

Screenshot of Fonality's Heads Up Display (HUD) Web dashboard is home base for connecting with colleagues and customers.Screenshot of Chatting is easy in HUD as they are easily launched by hovering over a fellow user's avatar. Chats are also available within Groups and Conferences.Screenshot of Managers with Fonality's Advance Call Center license can Barge, Monitor, or Whisper with one click. Useful for training, customer insights, and quality assurance. Real-time call queue information is shown in the Dock area to the right.Screenshot of Every Fonality system comes with voicemail boxes for all users, but with optional Voicemail Transcription you'll never have to listen to a voicemail again. Transcribed voicemails are delivered in HUD and via email.