Linphone is a free, open-source SIP softphone for voice and video calls, instant messaging, and presence. It connects to any SIP provider or IP-PBX, making it a practical desktop client for personal VoIP lines and business telephony.
Linphone is a free, open-source softphone that places voice and video calls over IP using the SIP standard. You register a SIP account, whether from the Linphone service, a corporate IP-PBX, or any third-party provider, and the app handles dialing, answering, call transfer, and conferencing from a single window. Instant messaging and presence sit beside the dialer, so text chats and call history stay in one place. Because it is fully SIP-based, Linphone works alongside hardware phones and other softphones on the same network rather than locking you into a proprietary service, which makes it a practical desktop replacement for legacy handsets.
Beyond plain dialing, the desktop client supports multiple accounts, so consultants and support staff can keep a work line and a personal line registered at the same time. Call quality controls include echo cancellation, adjustable audio and video codecs, and NAT traversal through ICE and TURN, which helps calls survive home routers and restrictive firewalls. Conversations can be secured with SRTP or ZRTP encryption, and the same standards-based approach makes interop straightforward. Teams that also rely on voice chat for group sessions often pair a softphone like Linphone with a dedicated voice server such as TeamSpeak 3 Client, since each tool covers a different kind of conversation.
The main benefit of Linphone is cost control without lock-in: calls travel over your existing internet connection and your existing SIP provider, so there is no per-seat subscription tied to a single vendor. It is open source, which means the code can be audited, self-hosted infrastructure can be added later, and the client will not disappear behind a paywall. Encryption for audio, video, and messaging means sensitive conversations are not left in the clear, a requirement that matters for legal, healthcare, and public-sector users. Administrators appreciate the standards compliance, because provisioning can be pushed out automatically and the softphone coexists with desk phones, gateways, and IP-PBX systems already in place. Individual users get a clean, familiar interface with contacts, transfer, mute, and video in one window, and one SIP account can be reused on other devices without reconfiguration. Support for common audio codecs keeps bandwidth use reasonable on weak connections, and echo cancellation keeps hands-free calls usable. In short, Linphone delivers the core of a business phone system as a free desktop application.
Register several SIP accounts at once and choose which line places each outgoing call. A status indicator shows whether each account is registered, so you can spot a dropped corporate line immediately rather than after a failed call, which matters for receptionists and support desks juggling work and personal numbers.
Linphone supports SRTP and ZRTP media encryption alongside TLS transport for SIP signalling, and the interface shows when a call is actually secured. That lets legal, medical, and government teams hold confidential conversations over the public internet without adding a separate encrypted handset.
Chat, file sharing, and presence status live in the same window as the dialer, using SIP SIMPLE so messages interoperate with other standards-based clients. You can see whether a colleague is available before calling, send a document mid-conversation, and keep message history beside the matching call record.
Start a conference call, add participants, and hand a caller to a colleague with blind or attended transfer. Video is negotiated automatically when both ends support it, with resolutions that scale to available bandwidth, which suits teams needing quick face-to-face check-ins without a separate conferencing subscription.
ICE and TURN handle NAT traversal so calls connect from home routers and restrictive corporate firewalls, while echo cancellation, jitter buffering, and automatic codec selection adapt to changing network conditions. The practical result is fewer dropped calls and clearer audio on uneven Wi-Fi or mobile hotspots.
Import contacts, search them straight from the dialer, and review a unified history that mixes outgoing calls, missed calls, and chat threads. Faster lookup and one-click redial cut the friction of repeat calls, and the history doubles as a record of who was contacted and when.
Linphone negotiates widely used audio codecs such as Opus, G.711, Speex, and GSM, plus video formats including H.264, VP8, MPEG-4, and Theora. That breadth keeps conversations working across mixed estates of desk phones, gateways, and PBX systems that do not share a single preferred codec.
Accounts can be provisioned through remote configuration files or QR codes, so administrators roll out server addresses, credentials, and policies without touching every desktop. Central control reduces misconfiguration, speeds up onboarding, and keeps a whole fleet of clients consistent when infrastructure or numbering plans change.
Yes. The Linphone softphone is free for individual and organizational use, and there is no account fee to place calls through your own SIP provider. Optional paid services such as commercial support, custom development, and tailored builds are offered for businesses that want them.
You need a SIP account from somewhere, but not necessarily a paid one. You can register a free Linphone SIP address, use an account from a hosted VoIP provider, or connect to an in-house IP-PBX, and the client places calls over whichever service you register.
Yes, as long as the call path stays inside SIP. Calls between Linphone and other SIP clients, desk phones, or SIP gateways connect directly, while reaching ordinary telephone numbers requires a provider or gateway that bridges SIP to the public switched telephone network.
The client supports ZRTP end-to-end encryption for audio and video, plus SRTP and TLS for protecting media and signalling traffic. Encryption requires both ends to support it, and the interface indicates when a call is secured so you are not guessing about the state of a conversation.
Yes. Multiple accounts can be registered at the same time, and the client lets you pick which line to call from. That is useful when you keep separate corporate and personal numbers, or when a support role manages several customer accounts from one workstation.
It does. Video is negotiated automatically during a call when both participants support it, and the in-call controls let you turn a two-person conversation into a multi-party conference or transfer the caller to another extension without ending the session.
It can be. Because it follows open SIP standards, the softphone registers against the IP-PBX or hosted voice service you already run, supports remote provisioning, and coexists with desk phones and gateways, so it is commonly deployed as a software phone alongside existing hardware.
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