Asterisk PBX
Hacker ApprovedPBX software in Networking & smart home
Free open-source phone system that turns a Raspberry Pi and VoIP line into your own PBX and blocks spam, though critics find setup complicated.
Free open-source phone system that turns a Raspberry Pi and VoIP line into your own PBX and blocks spam, though critics find setup complicated.
16 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 13
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 81%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 13 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 4.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 9 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Blocks spam and unwanted calls
“Installed Asterisk with a Raspberry on their land line to allow only whitelisted numbers and the problem was solved”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “AI fuels more than half of cybercrime in Africa as scams surge – Interpol” “The nicest thing is that when the phone rings, it's a person who I know, not a scam.”
Comment from 1 Sep 2026 in “RotaryCell: Making an unmodified rotary phone work over LTE with an ESP32-S3” “This worked remarkably well for blocking the spam.”
Comment from 23 Feb 2026 in “Landlines are ringing in homes again. Why parents are happy about that” Runs your own PBX on Raspberry Pi
“connect it to a Raspberry Pi with Asterisk, and any VOIP provider, to make your own PBX”
Comment from 23 Mar 2026 in “The hottest new phone is Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids” “if you have a PBX line (which the telco will change for) you can run Asterix and then”
Comment from 18 Dec 2025 in “Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2025 – Show and tell” Fun to build and use
“Run your own Asterisk server with special #0 that the kids can dial to listen to children's podcasts, etc., it can be very entertaining.”
Comment from 27 Apr 2026 in “The Hottest Phone for Kids Right Now Is a $100 Landline” “It was seriously fun working with that stuff.”
Comment from 14 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Self-hosted voice AI agent for Asterisk/FreePBX”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Hard to configure and maintain
“complicated setup and eventually it fell into disuse”
Comment from 24 Mar 2026 in “Box of Secrets: Discreetly modding an apartment intercom to work with Apple Home” “It can be challenging to configure but LLMs can help a lot with this in my experience.”
Comment from 18 May 2026 in “VoIP Brings Back Old-Fashioned Pay Phones to Rural Vermont”
What people said
15 of the 16 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Asterisk used to send a Cartesian product of available codecs and IP addresses”
“The nicest thing is that when the phone rings, it's a person who I know, not a scam.”
“I now run an asterisk that hangs up on every call”
“Installed Asterisk with a Raspberry on their land line to allow only whitelisted numbers and the problem was solved”
“It was seriously fun working with that stuff.”
“It can be challenging to configure but LLMs can help a lot with this in my experience.”
“Run your own Asterisk server with special #0 that the kids can dial to listen to children's podcasts, etc., it can be very entertaining.”
“Asterisk.org which pre-dates and may have sparked if/not powered early-Twilio”
“complicated setup and eventually it fell into disuse”
“connect it to a Raspberry Pi with Asterisk, and any VOIP provider, to make your own PBX”
“This worked remarkably well for blocking the spam.”
“a nice journey, but not something that could possibly succeed.”
“Hosting Asterisk or Yate to use with softphones or classic VoIP desk phones is also problematic”
“if you have a PBX line (which the telco will change for) you can run Asterix and then”
“a full server like Asterisk if you want to tunnel the audio as well”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.