Trixbox, elastix... vs. my own Asterisk build ?!

What solution is better:

  1. building Asterisk PBX from scratch
  2. using distibutions, GUIs like Elastix, Trixbox, AsteriskNOW…

Currently I’m using the first option, it gives me freedom when configuring the PBX. I see a lot of people using solutions like Elastix in production…should I do the same ?! :confused:
What’s your opinion?

That all depends on your Linux and telephony knowledge. If you know a lot about both (I do mean a lot) then option 1 is good enough. If, on the other hand, you don’t want to be bothered with text files and Linux commands - go for a GUI version (which FreePBX etc are).

HTH

By doing it yourself from scratch you will learn quite alot. It will take a bit of time and effort however. But if you have the time to spend, in my opinion it is worth the effort.

Def. worth learning from scratch. I have seen many installs by “Asterisk Experts” that only know how to navigate Trixbox or FreePBX. When building it from scratch you tend to learn more and see what can be done vs. with using a GUI your mind seems to only grasp what is available in the specific GUI that you are using.