A softphone for FreePBX and Asterisk
Most softphones treat the PBX as a place to register and nothing more. Meow uses what FreePBX and Asterisk already publish, so the desktop gets the busy lamps, parking and voicemail a desk phone has. Linux and Windows.
Busy lamps for the whole team
List the extensions you want to watch and Meow shows a lamp for each: green free, amber ringing, red on a call. Click one to call. It uses the same extension hints a desk phone's BLF keys use, which FreePBX creates for every extension.
Parking, voicemail and forwarding
Park a call in a FreePBX parking lot and anyone in the office can pick it up; Meow shows parked calls with the caller's number. A badge counts new voicemail and one click rings the mailbox. Call forwarding is switched on and off with the PBX's own feature codes, so it keeps working after Meow is closed.
PBX setup lists what each feature needs on the PBX, with the FreePBX defaults.
Call handling a receptionist can use
Two lines at once, hold and swap, blind and attended transfer, transfer of a call that is still ringing, three-way conference and call recording. A backup registrar takes over if the main server stops answering, and the line returns on its own.
Standard SIP, nothing in the middle
Meow registers directly to your server over UDP, TCP or TLS, with SRTP when the PBX offers it. Codecs are Opus, G.722 and G.711. There is no cloud service of ours between the phone and the PBX.
Questions
- What do I need to configure on FreePBX?
- For calls, only an extension. Busy lamps work with FreePBX's default hints, voicemail indication is on for any extension with a mailbox, and parking needs the parking lot extension and slots (usually 70 and 71-80) entered in Meow.
- Does Meow work with plain Asterisk, without FreePBX?
- Yes. Everything Meow uses is standard SIP that Asterisk provides: registration, hints for busy lamps, message-waiting notifications and parking.
- Can it register two accounts at once?
- Yes, two SIP lines at the same time, each with its own status, and several numbers per account where the provider supports it.
- Is Meow free?
- Every feature is available in a 14-day trial with no card. After that it needs a paid licence; the pricing page lists the plans.
Related
- PBX setup is the administrator's guide to each feature.
- Getting started adds the first account.
- Meow for Linux covers distributions, Wayland and PipeWire.
- Meow for Windows covers headsets and silent install.