Unbeknownst to many people, there are a growing number of free stand-alone VoIP clients, some of which arent half bad. Today Im going to be doing an in-depth look at one of these free downloadable clients, Jitsi, which is described as an audio/video Internet phone and instant messenger that supports some of the most popular VoIP and instant messaging protocols such as SIP, Jabber, AIM/ICQ, MSN, etc

The list is extensive, but it had me at SIP and Jabber.

Jitsi, which is written mostly in Java, is a free and open source VoIP, and instant messaging application for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Its currently in alpha. Stable releases come out every so often while nightly builds are released several times a day. When appropriate, users are automatically prompted to download and install the latest build (or you can just tell it to do this all without asking).

What separates this application from others like it is the inclusion of enterprise VoIP features such as attended and blind call transfer, call recording, call encryption, conferencing, and video calls.

This version of the application looks and feels great. The main UI is simple and clean, the pop-up call handling screen is easy to use, and the instant messaging feature is handled nicely. Jitsi certainly aims to accomplish a lot. While you can almost expect a few glitches here and there, it is certainly worth trying out.

[ Relevant Sidenote: This review was conducted on a Macbook Pro. ]

As usual, I am going to do a quick walk through of how to setup OnSIP with Jitsi. A lot of these steps apply no matter which VoIP provider youre using so I noncustomers will also find this useful. Youre going to need your user credentials. They can be found in your OnSIP admin portal under users. Here is an example of the fields you will need:

Setting Up VoIP Calling

Open up Jitsi and select +Add New Account under File. You should see a screen pop up that looks like this:

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Jitsi - Business VoIP Phone Service | OnSIP