Looking for a free, open-source dialer? ICT Innovations offers ICTDialer, a fully free open-source dialer (FreeSWITCH-based, not Asterisk) on GitHub: github.com/ictinnovations/ictdialer.
As of May 8, 2026, ICTBroadcast (Asterisk-based) is offered as a paid commercial product only — see the ICTBroadcast packages page for current pricing. The previous ICTBroadcast Community Edition / Enterprise free-license program has been discontinued.
The honest answer is yes – you can run a free auto dialer on Asterisk without paying license fees, per-seat charges, or cloud minutes. The catch is what “free” includes and what it doesn’t. Here’s what an Asterisk-based open source dialer actually gives you, and when it stops being enough.
What Counts as a Free Asterisk-Based Auto Dialer
Asterisk by itself is a PBX, not a dialer. It hands phone calls. To turn it into an auto dialer you need a campaign engine on top: something that pulls a contact list, places outbound calls through Asterisk, detects answers, routes connected calls to agents, and tracks results.
That’s where ICTBroadcast Community Edition fits. It’s a free, open source layer on top of Asterisk that adds the campaign logic. You install both. Asterisk handles SIP and RTP, ICTBroadcast handles the dialing strategy, agent panel, IVR, recordings, and reports.
The whole stack runs on a single Linux server. No SaaS subscription, no recurring per-seat fee. The trade is that you maintain it yourself. For a small inside-sales team or a regional collections shop, this is a perfectly serviceable production setup. Where it starts hurting is multi-tenancy and high concurrency, which we’ll get to below.
How Predictive Dialing Works on Asterisk
A predictive dialer doesn’t wait for an agent to finish before placing the next call. It watches average talk time, abandonment rate, and agent availability, then dials slightly ahead of the curve. When a person answers, the call is bridged to the next free agent within a second or two.
On Asterisk, the campaign engine drives this through Originate calls over AMI. The dialer monitors call-status events streamed back, decides when to bridge, and parks or drops abandoned calls depending on the rules you’ve set for your jurisdiction.
Three modes are common, and ICTBroadcast Community Edition supports all three out of the box:
- Power dialing: one call per agent, placed only when an agent is idle. Safest mode, near-zero abandonment, lowest throughput.
- Progressive dialing: dials a fixed multiplier ahead (1.2 to 1.5 calls per available agent). Decent throughput, manageable risk.
- Predictive dialing: adjusts the multiplier in real time based on agent availability and pickup rate. Highest throughput, highest abandonment risk if mis-tuned.
If you’re new to outbound, start in power mode for the first week. Move to progressive once your agents have a rhythm. Predictive only after you have at least 5 agents on shift and a stable answer rate to model against.
What ICTBroadcast Community Edition Includes Free
The concrete list, not marketing copy:
- Voice broadcasting (pre-recorded outbound)
- Auto dialer with predictive, progressive, and power modes
- IVR and press-1 campaigns
- Survey campaigns with DTMF capture
- Agent web panel
- Web phone (WebRTC) so agents work in the browser without a softphone install
- Call recording with timestamped storage
- Disposition codes and basic CRM fields
- DNC list management
- Multi-language IVR audio
- TCPA-aware calling-window enforcement (time-zone and hour rules)
- REST API for CRM integration
- Reports and basic analytics
- Single-tenant (one company, multiple users)
There’s no time-bomb, no contact-count cap, no nag screens. You can place as many calls as your hardware can handle. A 6-agent solar lead-qualification team I worked with last year ran around 22,000 outbound calls a week on a single 8-core VPS, and never paid a per-seat fee. Their predictive multiplier settled near 1.4 after about a week of tuning.
What’s Not in the Free Edition
The honest list of gaps:
- Multi-tenancy. CE is single-tenant. If you want to resell to multiple customer tenants under one install, you need the SP Edition, which is how ICT Innovations funds ongoing development. The multi-user vs multi-tenant comparison spells out why that distinction matters in architecture and billing.
- Answering-machine detection is decent but not as accurate as the SP edition’s AI-based AMD.
- No conversational AI agent or sentiment scoring yet (those are on the roadmap for paid editions).
- Support is community forum and GitHub, not a paid SLA contract.
- Update cadence is slower than the commercial editions.
If any of those gaps are deal-breakers for your team, the ICTBroadcast TCPA compliant dialer edition closes them. For most small and mid-size operators, the gaps don’t actually bite.
Server Requirements (Realistic, Not Vendor Minimums)
| Concurrent calls | CPU | RAM | Disk | Bandwidth |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Up to 30 | 4 cores, 2.5 GHz+ | 8 GB | 80 GB SSD | 10 Mbps |
| 30 to 100 | 8 cores, 3 GHz+ | 16 GB | 160 GB SSD | 25 Mbps |
| 100 to 300 | 16 cores | 32 GB | 320 GB SSD | 50+ Mbps |
| 300 to 1,000 | Dedicated bare metal | 64+ GB | NVMe | 100+ Mbps |
The numbers above are for G.711 codec, which is the safe default. G.729 cuts bandwidth in half but adds CPU and a license cost; rarely worth it on modern hardware. Beyond 1,000 concurrent calls you’re into multi-server territory, and at that point the SP edition plus a tuned kernel becomes necessary. We documented the practical ceiling in the Asterisk 5,000-concurrent-call load test.
For OS, most production deployments run on CentOS Stream, Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux, or Ubuntu LTS. The ICTBroadcast installation prerequisites guide covers exact package versions and kernel-tuning recommendations.
TCPA, DNC, and Compliance Are Built In
If you’re calling US numbers, this matters more than the dialer itself. Free or paid, every dialer that touches American consumers has to follow TCPA. ICTBroadcast Community Edition ships with the controls you need:
- Calling-hour windows, default 8 AM to 9 PM recipient local time, configurable per campaign
- Time-zone-based campaign scheduling that auto-pauses calls when a number’s local time falls outside legal hours
- DNC list import and scrubbing before each campaign
- Consent flag per contact record with audit trail
- Call recording with timestamps for dispute defense
- Caller-ID rotation rules (still your responsibility to comply locally)
Don’t skip this section if you’re new to outbound. TCPA penalties for non-consented predictive dialing start at $500 per call and reach $1,500 per call in willful cases. A single bad campaign can outweigh years of dialer license savings. For the full breakdown of what each jurisdiction requires, see our auto dialer laws and TCPA compliance guide and the country-by-country regulation summary.
When Free Stops Being the Right Choice
A few honest signals it’s time to upgrade:
- You need to host multiple client tenants on one platform (multi-tenant SaaS or BPO model).
- You’re dialing more than 300 concurrent calls and need horizontal scaling across servers.
- You want AI-based answering-machine detection or AI-driven agent quality assurance.
- You need an SLA-backed support contract for compliance audits.
- Your customers ask for white-label branding.
If none of those apply, the free edition genuinely is enough. Don’t pay for capacity or features you won’t use. For most small and mid-size outbound teams, ICTBroadcast Community Edition is what they actually need, paired with a SIP trunk and a few VoIP-ready desktops.
Setup in Brief
The full step-by-step is in the installation prerequisites guide. The rough sequence:
- Provision a clean Linux server matching the spec table above.
- Install Asterisk through the bundled installer (it pulls and compiles a tested version).
- Run the ICTBroadcast Community Edition installer. It sets up MySQL, the web UI, AMI, and the dialer worker.
- Purchase a license at the packages page and activate. Or use the FreeSWITCH-based ICTDialer for a no-cost open-source path.
- Configure your SIP trunk, upload a contact list, set calling-hour rules, start a campaign.
Plan a half-day for the first install, less if you’ve used Asterisk before. Web phone and CRM integration are configured later through the admin panel.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Asterisk auto dialer really free forever?
For a fully free, open-source dialer, see ICT Innovations’ ICTDialer (FreeSWITCH-based) on GitHub: github.com/ictinnovations/ictdialer. ICTBroadcast (Asterisk-based) is now a paid commercial product — see the packages page for current pricing.
Can I use it to call US numbers commercially?
Yes, but only if you handle TCPA consent, DNC scrubbing, and calling hours yourself. The dialer enforces the rules you configure, but the legal responsibility is yours. Use written-consent records and DNC list scrubbing before every run.
How many agents can it support?
The community edition has no hard agent limit. Practical limits come from your server hardware. A reasonable VPS supports 25 to 40 agents on power dialing, fewer on predictive due to higher concurrent call volume.
Does it work with VoIP trunks like Twilio, Telnyx, or Bandwidth?
Yes. Any SIP trunk works: Twilio, Telnyx, Bandwidth, VoIP.ms, your own carrier. Configure them in the Asterisk SIP or PJSIP layer like any other SIP endpoint.
What’s the difference between this and FreePBX?
FreePBX is a PBX management UI for Asterisk. It handles inbound calls, extensions, and IVR menus. It’s not an auto dialer. ICTBroadcast adds the campaign engine that FreePBX doesn’t have. You can run them together but they overlap, and most installs pick one.
Can I integrate it with my CRM?
Yes, through the REST API. Click-to-call, screen pops on inbound, and contact-sync workflows are common patterns. There’s also a webhook for disposition events so your CRM can react to call outcomes in real time.
Where do I get support if something breaks?
Community forum and GitHub issues for the free edition. Paid support contracts are available through ICT Innovations support if you’re in a regulated industry and need response-time SLAs.
Related Resources
- Best Auto Dialer Software for Call Centers (2026)
- Asterisk Load Testing: 5,000 Concurrent Calls
- Auto Dialer Laws and TCPA Compliance
- Time-Zone Restrictions for Telemarketing Campaigns
- Multi-User vs Multi-Tenant Software for Call Centers
Need a hand sizing the right edition or planning a migration from a paid SaaS dialer? Open a ticket at service.ictinnovations.com and we’ll review your campaign volume, compliance scope, and target hardware.