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3CX Live Chat vs Skype for Business comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 3, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

3CX Live Chat
Ranking in Virtual Meetings
17th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
IP PBX (1st), Unified Communications (2nd), Live Chat (4th), Hosted and Cloud Based VoIP (4th)
Skype for Business
Ranking in Virtual Meetings
3rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Virtual Meetings category, the mindshare of 3CX Live Chat is 1.5%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Skype for Business is 13.4%, up from 8.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Meetings
 

Featured Reviews

Ahmed ACHOUR - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced service desk workflow which streamlines operations and offers strong integration capabilities
The customers use 3CX for IP telephony and call center activities. Additionally, they use 3CX for service desk activities, including integration with other ITSM products to collect data from customers who need technical support on their platforms 3CX has proven to be a good solution, particularly…
Magdalena Teodorczuk - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers great audio and video quality for virtual meetings
I like the instant messaging feature in the product since I prefer to use the chat functionalities provided by the solution. It is easy to integrate the product with some of the other solutions in the market. I rate the integration capabilities of the product a ten out of ten. The product's user interface is user-friendly. I use the product at a personal level, so I can't speak about the support it provides for the maintenance part. I rate the overall tool a ten out of ten.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Easy management console access through web browsers with a good interface to Outlook and multiple CRM systems."
"3CX is easy to use. It's pretty a much regular PBX system. It is quite easy to configure aspects of it, and it has a good soft client."
"The dashboards and interface of the solution are very good, they have covered most of the main features needed for our needs."
"3CX is useful and easy to use. I can talk to my colleagues from anywhere."
"The most valuable features of 3CX include meetings, IVR, and the workflow personalization of the service desk activity."
"Mobility features and remote extensions work well."
"This solution gives our customers mobility. They can use their phone system everywhere. The other key feature is the security."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable feature is how useful it has been for virtual meetings during the pandemic."
"The simplicity and ease of use are the most valuable features. It's so much easier and quicker than writing an email to someone and waiting for them to read it."
"We chose Skype for Business after other colleagues suggested that we give it a try. It has served us well."
"It has benefited my organization because I can use it on the phone, I can use it on a laptop, wherever I want. The communication channel is very easy now and I can call and chat. It's experienced. Together, my team manages everything. It's very easy."
"The most valuable feature of Skype for Business is that it has many other tools that you can be integrated with it. It makes the meetings more interactive."
"The GUI is very user-friendly."
"I like the fact that it opens up your video conferencing, and, in many cases, the audio at the same time."
"It's a good product, we like using it."
 

Cons

"3CX Live Chat could improve by being more customizable. There should be more skinning options for the appearance of the solution when we embed it onto a website. This would allow us to make it look more like part of our solution, rather than a third-party application."
"There should be an option to save some extensions."
"Once we establish the system and do the initial configuration, some configurations will be fixed. However, if we need to change those configurations, the option is to do a reinstallation. Otherwise, we cannot do anything."
"3CX Live Chat could improve by having better integration with other solutions because we had multiple calls in which information was not extracted correctly. We had to modify their names, and some other data needed to be sorted out for a better understanding of the calls."
"It could be better in terms of providing more options for call recording."
"Message management in 3CX Live Chat is a little tricky. You can transfer a conversation to someone else if it comes into a group, but it isn't always easy to return the conversation to the group."
"Reporting and integration are the main challenges, which are at the mid-level or in the enterprise depending on the system that we choose."
"The reporting and dashboards of 3CX could be improved."
"We overcame the audio quality issues by asking users to use the 'Call Me' feature with their desk phone."
"The video conferencing quality can be improved."
"The cost of Skype for Business has room for improvement."
"The ease of configuration or the lack of decent tooling to pinpoint your problems is probably its biggest issue."
"I believe optimizing the solution for lighter endpoints, particularly for embedded endpoints on mobile devices, would be valuable."
"We would like to better customize our instructions within the Outlook plugin/invite, but we are unable to do so."
"The inability to integrate Skype with other products is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"Skype for Business is not stable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution has been reasonable. We have not had any problems or complaints with the licensing model. We have not reached a point where we need to upgrade. We have all the correct channels."
"There aren't any additional costs. With the license I purchased, I have all features that I need. I don't have to buy an add-on or another license."
"Switching from POTS or PRI to SIP Trunk save the customer real costs. ROI is seen in less than a year."
"3CX sells an annual subscription, but we usually split it out monthly for clients, so they don't see an annual bill for the 3CX licensing, it's just part of their monthly phone bill. As they're paying us for carrier service anyway, we just roll it all together. Your standard phone service would be an additional cost, you either need to maintain a local carrier with POTS lines or PRI or a SIP, or you have to go with a cloud-based SIP."
"The price of the solution is in the middle range compared to other solutions. There are different license options available. For example, there is a professional version and an enterprise version, and with the enterprise version, you have the ability to modify the dashboards. You can purchase a license at many different time frame increments, such as monthly, yearly, or two years."
"There is no add-on costing on the standard fees."
"We used a yearly license depending on the customer's requirements, and the customers did not complain about the pricing."
"We have purchased an annual license to use 3CX Live Chat. There are different options available, you can pay monthly or yearly. I am completely satisfied with the pricing of 3CX Live Chat, it is cheaper than competitors and it is a better solution."
"It may be considered costly for certain markets, such as in India."
"We negotiated a fair price with Microsoft. It is definitely worthwhile to negotiate with them for the best price for your solution."
"When it comes to the pricing of the solution, I rate it as a five out of ten. It falls somewhere in the middle between being cheap and expensive."
"We had a license for every one of our users to use Skype for Business. The license we used was part of an overall Microsoft license package."
"We purchased an open license."
"We have been able to save money by moving our conferencing solution to Skype for Business Conferencing."
"The pricing is really good. It is quite affordable because it came with our Office 365. It is on a per-user license, which is nice. I quite like that they have made it very granular with all of their licensing."
"To realize value from the purchase of Skype Business, you need to take advantage of all the important functions of the program."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
8%
Real Estate/Law Firm
8%
Educational Organization
91%
Financial Services Firm
2%
Computer Software Company
1%
Government
1%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for 3CX Live Chat?
The pricing of 3CX is around six out of ten. For some customers, the first year may be free of charge, allowing them to try the solution before deciding to implement it.
What needs improvement with 3CX Live Chat?
The reporting and dashboards of 3CX could be improved.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Skype for Business?
Skype for Business is affordable and has decent pricing. The video quality is a bit lower than Teams or Zoom, but it remains a good solution overall.
What needs improvement with Skype for Business?
The video quality could be improved, possibly due to internet connection issues. However, there is no significant weakness in Skype for Business.
 

Also Known As

3CX PBX
Skype for Business Plan 1, Skype for Business Plan 2, Lync Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
EmpireCLS Worldwide Chauffeured Services,LA Fitness, MedcoEnergi International, Tampa General Hospital, and HopewellHoldings Limited.
Find out what your peers are saying about 3CX Live Chat vs. Skype for Business and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.