ASTPP not ready for production

[bakko]

I was thinking of using ASTPP in production to replace A2Billing that use for several years. After what I read in this forum and in the documentation, I decided not to do it. It is clearly a strictly personal opinion. Weaknesses:

- poor documentation
- lack of availability for developers to clearly explain some basic features of the program
- Part dedicated to OpenSIPs unusable y totally obsolete but present in the GUI (clean the code)
- Serious billing errors https://github.com/iNextrix/ASTPP/issues/481 https://github.com/iNextrix/ASTPP/issues/476
- useless credit notification system

- to many basic questions developers respond by offering paid support

- update currencies system not work correctly

- no tax management on prepaid account on customer basis

See you in few years.

Regards

[fran]

you can get MVTS Or MOR Instead

[Azazur Rahman]

MVTS is no more and the new owner's price too high
You can go with VOS3000 that is cheaper and best

--
=====================================================================
Please motivate us by contributing little here:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/astpp-open-source-voip-billing-solution

Documentation: https://astpp.readthedocs.io/ Please contact at
sa...@inextrix.com for commercial support.
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[Devang Nathwani]

Hello,

We'll make sure that whole world will receive the updated version of ASTPP, v4.0 but you guys not! ;)

Just kidding!

Actually let us grab the opportunity to thank you, first of all for considering ASTPP and dig through it.

As you have already know that we are keep upgrading our source whether it is in terms of new features or bug resolution.

We are here and we are listening and we are working.

This is ongoing process.

And by the way, people around the world are using ASTPP in production environment so that definitely not a case and I am totally disagree with you on it.

However as mentioned we are growing; technically, quantitatively, financially.

But we continuously need help as mentioned in our crowdfunding campaign(Today is the last day to contribute) because maintaining opensource billing platform with freeswitch in backgroup which is by the way very rare in market is bit tough job. However thanks to our lead maintainer Mr. Samir Doshi we are sustaining and keep improving our self. 

Other then that if you are technically capable, you can send us MR in git.

So, As I said, we are here, listening and working.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/astpp/!%26!AAAAAAAAAAAYAAAAAAAAAKxUU7k3hmdMg6EgL4cY7s5ieCoAEAAAADIXFNVNmxhNoYW/91suN9UBAAAAAA%3D%3D%40gmail.com.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

Thanks,

Devang Nathwani

BACK US. ASTPP raising fund to keep serving and sustaining.

[Azazur Rahman]

ASTPP 1^st time configuration also complex, I did ask their live support why you make this so complex the live support reply me, if u need assistance, please purchase our paid support; its true they keep several video in Youtube but it seems to me they did make it complex and keep un necessary configuration steps which they can avoid…

In my point of view, ASTPP can follow VOS3000, VoipSwitch and other popular softswitch’s configuration steps to restructure their ASTPP  

  

I hope they will think about that and then the ASTPP will be more popular

 

Thanks

 

 

From: as...@googlegroups.com <as...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of bakko
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2019 6:29 PM
To: ASTPP <as...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [ASTPP] ASTPP not ready for production

 

I was thinking of using ASTPP in production to replace A2Billing that use for several years. After what I read in this forum and in the documentation, I decided not to do it. It is clearly a strictly personal opinion. Weaknesses:

--

=====================================================================
Please motivate us by contributing little here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/astpp-open-source-voip-billing-solution
 
Documentation: https://astpp.readthedocs.io/
Please contact at sa...@inextrix.com for commercial support.
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[bakko]

Sorry but I'm speaking only about Open Source.

[bakko]

I pay for what?

the first time I listened about ASTPP was 2015 (version 2.3). The 3.6 not is a beta version and like a beta version. If there are people use it in production maybe is because pay you to install and personalize the software.

Good luck with your 4.0 version.

Regards

[Darren Russo]

Well my friend, its up to you on how you see the things.

This topic has been discussed multiple times.

In my honest opinion, I have been using this system in production since version 3.0 and I haven't purchased any installation or support services from them yet.

This does not mean, I am not facing any issues or I am an expert but i learnt from the available documentation and explored it with the skills i do have.

Rather than criticising free solution and blame on their developers or community, you should try contributing in anyway to make it better. If its not possible for you then either you should switch to any thousand dollar proprietary switch which can make your pocket light or sit quite.

This is Open Source community made of People, by the People, for the People. 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/astpp/00932c27-2423-4bf4-80ad-f7edaf7063dd%40googlegroups.com.

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--

Darren Russo

System Analyst (IT) | Norway

[bakko]

Hello Darren,

I can use it in production too but before I need to know why some features don't work and why some parameters means.

Each time I ask on this forum to clear my doubts, the answers have been almost always unclear.

It is not an obligation to answer the questions but if it is done, it should be done in a detailed and clear way and not invite to contact the support (paying for it).

Regards

[Kristaps Dravnieks]

Stop whinging!!! 

Paid support is offered every time somebody ask for feature, not possible with current code. 

If you are not sharp enough to figure out how to setup system, it is only fear, to pay few bob to person, who will setup system for collecting money from your customers. And creators of this money making tool should get money in some way to feed their families. 

If you think astpp forum is bad, try to ask about kazoo open source in 2600hz forum. Community is dead, developers answer posts once per year, to get support from company you have to pay starting from 50k $ per year and up. 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/astpp/67204636-3f4d-418d-a6f6-331346b89033%40googlegroups.com.

[Kavin Chauhan]

I don't know why someone crying unnecessarily here if he does not want to use the product from the community.

JUST TO BLAME !!!!

I don't think it will affect any way to ASTPP. Because I see the hard working behind this and as per my study, People saying that ASTPP asking for support if they ask anything out of the box.

Yes but sometimes. but have you ever studied those features or demands? I have seen that so many of those demands are fulfilled by ASTPP as opensource in their future releases but if you want it for making your pocket full then only they may ask you for support.

Here so many bright minds have asked technical questions/queries and Mr. Samir and teammates answered them with all correct details. I personally fix up some of the minor issues that actually just configuration. Show me any community in this field which can help you with these much of open hands.

Man!!! just check the current status of so many so-called opensource around you. What's Freeswitch doing? What's vicidial doing? What's FreePBX doing? So many I can show you.

And I can say that all these are just due to these type of persons, who never encourage efforts to such small helping hands and they just start to cut down them in public and at last, such opensource have to shut off or have to show their power in some other way as currently so many are showing.

So please let's think widely, wisely and if possible, help such opensource instead of putting them down.

We always love our supporters and always welcome your suggestions, feedbacks. It's all for you only. So let's grow up with ASTPP together.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/astpp/CAA33c%2BEKha8UfgHbVtN0_U0krmqVJdkNH_0BOtk7dG-7_Xra%3DA%40mail.gmail.com.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

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Thanks,

Kavin Chauhan,

Sr. Network and VOIP Engineer

Inextrix Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
+91 79 29700670

www.inextrix.com

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[bakko]

This is my last post because the thread starting boring me. In my first message i said the weak points of ASTPP like as criticism and advice and is my persona point of view. Some features are basic, others not but the code should be clean  and the GUI too.

A example: a provider of mine uses ASTPP and can not remove me the PayPal fee because it can not be done at the user level. So each time I make a recharge him give back me the amount of TAX. The reports of the calls, even if the time zone is correctly configured, do not appear correctly. And you know what he told me? I have to talk to the ASTPP developers to fix the problem. Do you think these are not basic features?

If you happy with ASTPP and his community I'm happy for you.

Goodbye

[fran]

That's ok go to asterisk2billing support and close this topic who has no care for you :)

Bye

[David Morris]

Hi Bakko,

We moved to ASTPP from A2billing 3 years ago. We use ASTPP in production on two systems:

Single VPS handling 2.3m minutes per month in pass through mode for wholesale termination and 100-200 concurrent connections.

Single VPS handling 500k minutes per month in mixed pass through and transcoding for wholesale termination.

 

ASTPP works great for us, but maybe you are using it in a different way to us.

The big benefit we found was that because the source is open we can easily tweak features to our own requirements. Every termination business is a bit different - for example we don't use any of the invoicing, DID, subscriptions or packages features. We make use of the paypal feature for clients to topup the system automatically with no interaction from us and our NOC finds it straightforward to use, configure and test the routing. We manually raise an invoice in our company invoicing system when we see the email notification of payment via paypal.

Over the years we have made a numberof code changes and bug fixes in house which are fairly straightforward PHP and LUA changes. The ASTPP source code is well structured and easy to change. For example there's a bug with paypal payments over 1k where the comma being returned from paypal caused an SQL issue with ASTPP. Because you have access to the source code you can change that yourself to remove the comma from the paypal response before the value is inserted into the database.

If you don't have the capability to make adjustments yourself and you want to run the open source version in a production environment then I presume you are receiving revenue from the calls and can pay a third party for a few hours of fixes to make ASTPP work in the way which is unique to your business. If you pay Inetrix for the changes they you'll minimize the costs as they will know exactly which bits of code to update for you, but you'll probably find third parties who are cheaper per hour to do fixes for you. It would be cost effective to pay inetrix once to fix the specific items you need than to pay a monthly or yearly subscription fee for an alternative softswitch.

Open source is great but the people who write the software need some way of monetizing the code in order to work on upgrades. If no one is paying anything for the software then at some point development will stop.

Your alternatives are:

a2billing - great up to a point but not very good for a large number of concurrent calls.

MVTS - out of business because too many people pirated the software (aka no one paying for development)

Sippysoft - great solution but closed source - some of our clients use this but there's no ability to make your own customisations and there's a subscription charge.

VOS3000 - I see so many people advertising cracked versions of this I have no idea how they can maintain their business. Closed source, no ability to make customisations, runs on Windows.

There's a large list of voip billing systems here: https://www.voip-info.org/voip-billing you might have luck finding an alternative there, but for us ASTPP has been running stable in production for a number of years and is certainly production ready for wholesale voice termination.

Out of these, you're going to have to pay somewhere for a system bespoke to you - either a monthly fee or a one-off customisation/bug fix.

Regards,

David

[ahmedk]

@ David Morris. What version of ASTPP are you currently using?

[ASTPP]

David your correct