Zoom vs 3CX

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Our analysts compared Zoom vs 3CX based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Business Phone Systems, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Product Basics

Zoom is an online conferencing solution that provides HD-quality voice calls, video meetings and webinars. Available as a native app on Windows, iOS and Android devices, it enables intelligent call routing, auto-attendant, voicemail, call recording and call transcription. Call agents can elevate phone calls to a video conference call without needing to hang up, and engage customers through direct chat from within the call. Integrating with Salesforce, Microsoft Office and GSuite, it supports hardware from leading manufacturers to provide a traditional deskphone experience.

Organizations can choose to retain their existing phone service providers with easy number portability. It provides coverage across more than 40 countries through local number availability. Its advanced plans offer an intuitive admin portal to provision and manage accounts, track meetings and attendees and receive usage insights from a centralized hub.
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A global leader in business communications, 3CX is a phone system based on the SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) standard. Suitable for any business size, this solution helps improve productivity, enhance customer experience and enable increased mobility. It’s simple, cost-effective, flexible and can be hosted on a remote server.

The platform enables simultaneous calling, allowing customers to pay only for what they require. It offers extensive functionality, reliability and security. Integrating this software with other systems is easy and straightforward.
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$13.32/User, Monthly
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$15/User, Monthly
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Tailored to your specific needs
Small 
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Medium 
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Large 
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Medium 
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Large 
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Windows
Mac
Linux
Android
Chromebook
Windows
Mac
Linux
Android
Chromebook
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile

Product Assistance

Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support

Product Insights

  • Build the Brand: Maximize ROI by building lasting customer relationships. Promote the brand through webinars and video conferences with thousands of attendees and design outreach strategies based on meeting data. 
  • Provide Customer Support: Attend customer queries and resolve issues by connecting to customers virtually, irrespective of the time zone. Never miss a customer call by configuring call forwarding. Monitor call quality via call recordings and transcriptions and share them with the team for training. 
  • Stay Connected: Never miss a business meeting while out of the office. Create and join meetings from anywhere on any device, including Android and iOS mobile phones. 
  • Establish Global Presence: Make the brand’s visible presence through localization. Port existing phone numbers to a local service provider, or get local phone numbers for seamless customer outreach and accessibility. 
  • Collaborate: Work in tandem with other team members through screen sharing and whiteboarding. Share and discuss insights via shared comments and annotations. Chat with co-workers in-meeting or create and join breakout rooms for focused discussions. 
  • Connect Within Business Apps: Build applications to get customer and team metrics within the host application. Manage user accounts and view meeting usage metrics by connecting to dashboards. 
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  • Cost Effective: Decrease hardware, administration and maintenance costs. Pay lower costs for making calls to offices set up in other countries.
  • Unified Communication: Use additional features such as CRM, live chat, messaging and video conferencing. Access them all conveniently at one place.
  • Easy To Use: Eliminate training hassles and start using the software immediately without any learning curves.
  • Better Mobility: Allow employees to use extensions irrespective of location. Secure increased mobility by letting them carry the extensions wherever they go. Easily add and manage new lines.
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  • Business Calling: Make and attend 1:1 and conference phone calls, participate in video meetings and send chat messages. Switch from phone calls to video meetings with one click — no need for a separate conference bridge. 
    • Call Management: Ensure every call is answered with auto-attendants and skills-based intelligent call routing. Listen to recorded phone calls or view text transcriptions through a PC, desk phone or mobile device. 
    • Administration Portal: Provision and manage users, and view call quality and usage reports from its central admin portal. 
    • Global Availability: Provides local telephone service across more than 40 countries. Seamlessly port current business numbers and use existing cell phone service providers in any country. 
  • Video Conferencing: Schedule and attend webinars and 1:1 or group meetings, internally or with clients, with Google, iCal and Microsoft calendar syncing. Join meetings across other conferencing room providers with compatible hardware that includes speakers, headphones, cameras, microphones and monitors. 
    • Collaboration: Start and/or schedule a meeting with a personal meeting ID that stays the same always. Co-annotate on shared screens and whiteboards, share files in-meeting, message others, and create and join breakout rooms for focused collaboration. 
    • Meeting Recordings: Record and store meetings locally, and share these recordings with others through Google Drive, Dropbox and other file storage services. Allow or restrict access to recordings by participants through in-meeting admin controls. Direct recordings to the cloud are available with paid plans. 
    • Permissions: Set up role-based and in-meeting permissions, such as enable/disable screen sharing by participants, using chat and mute/unmute settings. 
  • Dashboards: Monitor data on overall usage for meetings, Zoom Rooms, webinars, instant messaging and Zoom Phone, all from a single, unified interface. 
    • Meetings: Get a bird’s-eye view of meeting metrics, such as top locations of participants, year-to-date trends and devices used, in the form of bar charts, pie charts, line graphs and more. View information for meetings and Zoom Rooms, live and past, to a high level of granularity. 
    • Zoom Phones: Get metrics on Mean Opinion Score (MOS) scores and view call logs, voice codecs, ISP and network details, all on one screen. Monitor call health with hardware and OS versions listed for each call in a tabular format. 
  • Reporting: Get reports on registrations, attendees, Q&A, performance and participation details for meetings and webinars. Administrators can view more detailed usage and user activity reports. 
  • Integrations: Ensure seamless workflows from within proprietary applications through its integrations with Microsoft Office 365, Google Suite, Salesforce and Slack. 
  • Mobile App: Join meetings from anywhere with its native mobile app for Android and iOS, with a live screen sharing option. Attend conference calls and video meetings while on the move through its Safe Driving Mode, compatible with Apple CarPlay. 
  • APIs: Host new meetings, add and remove users, view dashboards and reports on usage through its wide range of REST-based APIs. Seamlessly handles large API response payloads through pagination. Test API endpoints with testing tool widgets from within the API Reference Docs. 
  • App Marketplace: Build chatbots and apps to connect to dashboards for meeting metrics, conduct webinars and manage connected user accounts from within proprietary applications. 
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  • Hosted PBX: Keep better control over everything. Manage updates and get maximum flexibility. Move virtual PBX to a private cloud when required. Access integrated video conferencing solutions, apps for mobile phone devices, website live chat and much more. Automatically configure firewall rules. Launch the software in a few minutes using PBX Express. Get unlimited extensions. Manage extensions for remote workers seamlessly.
  • Phone System: Use the open-platform system with an option to migrate to the cloud. Deploy it on an existing server and reduce costs. Allow employees to have an excellent remote-working experience and increase overall productivity. Access flexible inbound calls, outbound calls, DIDs and ring groups.
  • Mobile Apps: Access secured communication for the entire team. Don’t restrict communication to building premises. Work on the go using the available extensions. Ensure customer satisfaction even while working remotely. Check the team’s availability easily. Eliminate learning curves and commence working quickly. Facilitate cost-effective phone calls between employees and colleagues. Transfer clients quickly to the appropriate department. Use the app and desk phone simultaneously.
  • CRM Integration: Keep the entire customer record handy to help the clients more efficiently and create a good impression in front of them. Create new customer records. Make calls in one click. Route calls seamlessly based on customer numbers or customer questions. Initiate and journal a call simultaneously.
  • Video Conferencing: Access easy-to-use and free enterprise-level video conferencing. Invite participants in a single click. Join meetings directly from the web browser without downloading any app. Share documents, present using a whiteboard, control remote screens and more. Add up to 250 participants. Schedule meetings within seconds.
  • Webphone: Handle all calls, check availability of team members and initiate video calls using one location. Make and receive calls straight from the web browser. Log in from anywhere using the required credentials and make a call with one click. Access voicemail, initiate video calls and get call notifications.
  • Call Center: Eliminate complex tasks and allow your agents to get more time to focus on vital work. Use the callback option and ensure no customer calls get missed. Record calls for reference purposes and access them whenever required. Centrally monitor ticket responses.
  • Live Chat: Integrate live chat with the phone system and allow website visitors to initiate real-time chats with the agents. Initiate a video call or live call without even dialing numbers. Manage all the communication on a single platform. Customize chat greetings keeping business hours and holidays in mind.
  • Microsoft 365: Connect with Microsoft 365 easily and streamline the workflow. Initiate calls directly from the interface. Automate phone contacts syncing. Use SSO authentication login using one click. Catch any important messages or calls. Create new extensions automatically.
  • Facebook Messages: Connect easily with customers. Eliminate the need to give all agents access to the Facebook page. Allow agents to respond to customers and resolve queries quickly. Track and archive Facebook messages successfully. Enable live chat messaging.
  • Business Texts: Use a designated business contact number to send and receive messages. Ensure no messages are unanswered, thus increasing customer satisfaction. Improve response rates.
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Product Ranking

#1

among all
Business Phone Systems

#27

among all
Business Phone Systems

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Analyst Rating Summary

91
96
72
100
88
100
100
95
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Collaboration
Integration & extensibility
Mobile features
Phone numbers
Security
Call coverage
Calling features
Integration & extensibility
Mobile features
Voicemail & messaging

Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

Zoom
3CX
+ Add Product + Add Product
Call Coverage Calling Features Collaboration Mobile Features Phone Numbers Phone System Voice Intelligence & Analytics Voicemail & Messaging 72 88 100 100 100 95 88 100 100 100 95 100 75 96 90 100 0 25 50 75 100
71%
0%
29%
100%
0%
0%
88%
0%
12%
100%
0%
0%
100%
0%
0%
93%
0%
7%
100%
0%
0%
100%
0%
0%
100%
0%
0%
75%
0%
25%
93%
0%
7%
93%
0%
7%
71%
0%
29%
86%
0%
14%
100%
0%
0%
100%
0%
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Analyst Ratings for Technical Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

100%
0%
0%
100%
0%
0%
100%
0%
0%
67%
0%
33%

User Sentiment Summary

Excellent User Sentiment 41293 reviews
Great User Sentiment 613 reviews
90%
of users recommend this product

Zoom has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 90% when considering 41293 user reviews from 6 recognized software review sites.

89%
of users recommend this product

3CX has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 89% when considering 613 user reviews from 4 recognized software review sites.

5.0 (12)
4.3 (14)
4.5 (33431)
4.4 (352)
4.37 (54)
n/a
4.6 (6279)
4.5 (229)
4.5 (533)
n/a
4.4 (984)
4.8 (18)

Awards

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated Zoom and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Collaboration. Zoom stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award
Collaboration Award

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated 3CX and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Calling features.

Calling features Award

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Ease of use: Approximately 79% of the users who mention ease of using the platform say it’s intuitive and user-friendly.
Functionality: Around 64% of the users who review functionality say the platform has a rich feature set to enable seamless video conferences and meetings.
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Cost-Effective: 3CX offers a significant cost savings compared to traditional phone systems, eliminating the need for expensive hardware and maintenance contracts.
Feature-Rich: 3CX provides a comprehensive suite of features, including call forwarding, voicemail, video conferencing, and CRM integration, meeting the diverse needs of businesses.
Scalability: 3CX can easily scale to accommodate growing businesses, allowing for seamless expansion without the need for costly upgrades or additional hardware.
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Pricing: Around 73% of the users who review its cost say it can be expensive for small organizations.
Security: Reviewing security, approximately 67% of users say the vendor should offer better safety and privacy features.
Performance: About 64% of the users who mention the software’s performance say it’s resource-intensive.
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Limited Call Handling: 3CX can struggle to handle high call volumes, leading to dropped calls and long wait times, which can be detrimental for businesses that rely heavily on phone communication.
Integration Challenges: Integrating 3CX with other business applications, such as CRM systems, can be complex and time-consuming, hindering productivity and workflow efficiency.
Limited Customization: 3CX offers limited customization options, making it difficult for businesses to tailor the system to their specific needs and branding, which can impact user adoption and satisfaction.
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Zoom is a popular web conferencing tool for online learning, training and collaboration at educational institutions, enterprises and government agencies. About 79% of the users who review the platform say it’s user-friendly, and novices can use it with minimal effort. Around 66% of the users who mention functionality appreciate the in-meeting audio and video quality. Team members can interact via whiteboarding, screen-sharing, annotation and commenting, though some users feel the chat interface can be improved. Local recording is available with both the free and paid versions, though quite a few users say recordings are storage-intensive, and the vendor doesn’t offer compression. On the flip side, around 73% of the users who mention pricing say it can be cost-prohibitive for smaller organizations, especially since webinars are available only for Pro and above accounts. Though the vendor offers unlimited meetings, approximately 36.6% of these users feel the 40-minute meeting time limit with the free version is restrictive. Of the users who review its performance, 57% say it lags on low bandwidth, with poor audio and video quality. Around 67% of the users who mention security say the vendor should provide additional safeguards to ensure secure meetings. To summarize, Zoom is a popular software for enterprises and education providers to connect remotely distributed teams, co-workers and clients. Though only paid subscriptions provide the high-end features, its free version can adequately support smaller organizations, with a user limit of 100 persons.

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3CX, a business phone software, has received positive user reviews over the past year. Users praise its ease of use, feature-richness, and cost-effectiveness. Compared to similar products, 3CX stands out for its intuitive interface, which makes it easy for users to set up and manage their phone systems. Additionally, 3CX offers a wide range of features, including call recording, voicemail, and video conferencing, which are essential for businesses of all sizes. One of the key differentiating factors of 3CX is its open-source nature. This allows businesses to customize the software to meet their specific needs. For example, businesses can integrate 3CX with their CRM or ERP systems to streamline their workflows. Another important factor is 3CX's affordability. Compared to proprietary solutions, 3CX offers a more cost-effective option without compromising on features or quality. Overall, 3CX is a well-rounded business phone software that is suitable for businesses of all sizes. Its ease of use, feature-richness, and affordability make it a great choice for businesses looking to improve their communications.

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Screenshots

Top Alternatives in Business Phone Systems


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