Free as in Speech-ness:
Skype: Proprietary software, proprietary protocol. Also owned by Ebay. Booo.
Gizmo: Proprietary software, open (SIP) protocol. Not bad.
Wengo: Open source software, open protocol. Vive la France!
Free as in Beer-ness:
Skype: Skype has been offering free calls within the US and Canada, though that runs out at the end of the year. I think that that deal only applies to domestic calls, but I can’t find an international rate *to* the US.
Gizmo: Gizmo has just started giving free calling between “active” (a few calls a week) users in sixty countries, including the US and Denmark. All you have to do is put your landline/mobile numbers in your profile (and have your friends do the same) and those numbers are free! It isn’t clear when/if this deal runs out.
Wengo: If you buy 10€ (about $12) worth of credit, you get free landline calls to “Star Countries” (which include the US and Europe). The deal apparently ends in September, though.
All of these have free computer-to-computer calling, of course. Just have to get all my folks on the same network…
Rates otherwise:
Skype: The rate to Denmark is $0.021/minute. I can’t find the international US rate.
Gizmo: Calls to the US are otherwise $0.01/minute. Calls to Denmark are $0.017/minute.
Wengo: Calls to the US are 0.008€ ($0.01). Calls to Denmark are 0.011€ ($0.013), the cheapest standard rate I’ve found so far.
UI:
Skype: Not bad, not spectacular. Cute sound effects.
Gizmo: Plenty of bells and whistles, including easy, built-in call recording and a nice little feature called “Map It.” Has an Adium plugin.
Wengo: Not just a VoIP client–also does instant messaging (AIM, Jabber, etc), text messaging, and video conferencing. Has a Firefox plugin.
Quality:
My dad constantly raves about Skype’s sound quality–his company worked with Skype’s codex before VoIP got off the ground. I really haven’t noticed any difference between it and Gizmo, though. Perhaps the difference will be more apparent when I go overseas? I just downloaded Wengo, so I haven’t tested it much yet. If it’s extraordinarily good or bad, I’ll say so later.
I guess this post is just getting all this information sorted out in my head. I haven’t decided which client to settle on for my trip abroad. Have any opinions?
“codex” should be codecs. Codec is a contraction of coder/decoder (really encoder/decoder). So, I guess it really should simply be codec, because Skype probably only has the one from Global IP Sound. Maybe I am too high on it, but when I first heard it four years ago, it was so much better than anything else I had heard up to that point, particularly when packets are being dropped. The GIPS codec degrades the voice quality as packet loss increases, starting out significantly better than than standard voice quality when there is no packet loss.
It is likely that calls into the US and Canada are free on Skype until the end of the year. If it weren’t, clever folks would just relay their internet traffic anyway. That is why you can’t find an international rate for the US any more. It used to be there – I checked it out before my trip to Germany). Although during my trip to Germany my calls to the US did cost a little bit, I don’t think that the Skype promotion had started at that point (last week of April – first week of May).
I’ve discovered that the Gizmo free calling between “active” users only applies to landlines in Denmark. Boooo. That means Wengo probably has the best deals for me calling you, if it works right. There doesn’t appear to be any way for me to call you for free :(
Either Gizmo or Skype will probably allow you to call my phones for free, I guess we’ll have to test that.
Here’s my source for Gizmo not giving free calls to mobile phones in Denmark:
http://support.gizmoproject.com/FAQs/freecalls.php
Ha! I was amused at the slightly derogatory reference to eBay’s purchase of Skype.
EBay does not really seem a good business match does it? I don’t think there has been much integration into eBay services either.
Any current views?