Pick ICTContact when live agents drive your business: contact centers, call centers, and CRM driven sales teams. Pick ICTBroadcast when automation does the talking: telemarketing at scale, auto dialer campaigns, and mass notifications. Both are commercial open source platforms with unified communications: voice, SMS and email on both, with WhatsApp and chat on ICTContact and fax on ICTBroadcast.
Two Products, Two Different Bets
ICTContact and ICTBroadcast come from the same product family and share a commercial open source model: the platforms are built on open source telephony, and you buy a supported commercial edition that the vendor installs, updates and stands behind. Where they part ways is the job they do. ICTContact bets on people, ICTBroadcast bets on automation.
ICTContact at a Glance
ICTContact is built around people. Your agents log in, take queued inbound calls, and work outbound lists through progressive, preview, manual or dynamic dialing, with predictive dialing available as an add-on, so answered calls always land on a live person. You get a visual IVR Designer for call flows, inbound campaigns and agent evaluation with QA scoring in the default package, and CRM features like contacts and deals right inside the platform. It also ships AI voice agents that answer and qualify calls before a human ever picks up. Browse the full ICTContact feature set to see how the pieces fit.
ICTBroadcast at a Glance
ICTBroadcast points the other way. It exists to deliver messages at volume: voice broadcasts, press 1 campaigns, answering machine detection, phone surveys, plus SMS, fax and email campaigns from one dashboard. Service providers run it as a multi tenant, white label platform with per tenant billing, which is why so many resellers build their business on it. Agents exist here too, through a WebRTC agent portal, but automation is the engine.
Side by Side Comparison
| ICTContact | ICTBroadcast | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary focus | Agent focused contact center | Automated, high volume communication |
| Best for | Contact centers, call centers, CRM driven sales and support teams | Call centers, automated telemarketing, auto dialer campaigns, mass notifications |
| Dialing modes | Progressive, preview, manual and dynamic dialing, with predictive dialing available as an add-on | Progressive, preview, manual, predictive and dynamic dialing, plus auto dialer mode for agentless broadcasting; inbound campaigns available as an add-on |
| AI voice agent | Built in AI voice agents answer, qualify and route calls, added as a node in the visual IVR Designer | AI agent support with Dialogflow through the IVR Designer, alongside press 1 flows |
| Agent tools | Agent portal, queues, evaluation and QA scoring, WebRTC web phone | WebRTC agent portal support for call center operations, with evaluation reports available as an add-on |
| Channels | Voice, SMS, email, WhatsApp and chat; omnichannel communication included in the default package | Voice, SMS, fax and email; omnichannel communication available as an add-on |
| CRM | Contacts and deals built in, plus REST APIs and CRM integration | REST APIs and CRM integration with external platforms; no built in CRM |
| Add-ons | Inbound campaigns and agent evaluation included by default, with predictive dialer available as an add-on | Predictive dialer mode included by default, with inbound campaigns and agent evaluation available as add-ons |
| White label and multi tenant | Yes, for agencies and providers | Yes, service provider edition with tenant billing |
| Licensing | Commercial open source | Commercial open source |
AI Voice Agents and Add-ons
This is where the two feel most different. ICTContact ships AI voice agents as part of the platform: you drop one into a call flow as a node in the visual IVR Designer, and it greets callers, answers routine questions, qualifies leads and hands the rest to your team. Inbound campaigns, agent evaluation and omnichannel communication all come in the default package, with predictive dialing as the main add-on. ICTBroadcast takes the opposite approach: predictive dialing is standard, AI agent support arrives through Dialogflow inside its IVR Designer, and you grow the platform through add-on modules such as omnichannel communication, inbound campaigns, agent evaluation reports and a WHMCS module for billing.
When ICTContact Is the Right Choice
Choose ICTContact if conversations end with a person. Sales floors working CRM pipelines, support desks with queues and SLAs, and appointment driven businesses all fit here. The agent evaluation tools matter once you have a team to coach, and the AI voice agents take the repetitive first minute of every call off your staff. Check ICTContact pricing to match an edition to your team size.
When ICTBroadcast Is the Right Choice
Choose ICTBroadcast if the message itself is the product. Political and marketing broadcasts, payment reminders, emergency notifications and phone surveys run cheaper and faster when no agent is involved. If you plan to resell communication services, the service provider edition gives you tenants, billing and your own brand on the platform.
Can You Run Both?
Yes, and many teams do. Both platforms expose REST APIs, so a common pattern is running broadcast campaigns on ICTBroadcast and routing interested respondents to live agents on ICTContact. The broadcast side finds the interest, the agent side closes it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is ICTContact a replacement for ICTBroadcast?
No. They overlap on channels but solve different problems. ICTContact centers on live agents and CRM workflows, while ICTBroadcast centers on automated delivery at scale. Swapping one for the other usually means losing the strength you actually bought it for.
What does commercial open source mean here?
Both platforms are built on open source telephony technology, and you buy a commercial edition with installation, updates and vendor support included. You get the transparency and freedom of open technology without running the stack alone.
Does ICTBroadcast support live agents at all?
It does. A WebRTC agent portal supports call center operations, press 1 campaigns can transfer calls to a person, and inbound campaigns plus agent evaluation reports are available as add-ons. That said, if agents handle most of your traffic every day, ICTContact will serve you better.
Which one works better with a CRM?
Both offer REST APIs and CRM integration, so either connects to external CRMs such as SuiteCRM, Vtiger or EspoCRM. ICTContact goes further with contacts and deals built into the platform, while ICTBroadcast has no built in CRM of its own.
Do both platforms offer unified communications?
Yes. Voice, SMS and email run from a single interface on both. ICTContact includes omnichannel communication with WhatsApp and chat in its default package, while ICTBroadcast adds fax campaigning and offers omnichannel communication as an add-on module. The difference is intent: ICTContact uses those channels around agent conversations, ICTBroadcast uses them for campaign delivery at scale.
Can I white label these platforms?
ICTBroadcast offers a dedicated service provider edition with tenant billing, and ICTContact offers white label options for agencies and providers. Either way you can put your own brand in front of your customers.
Talk It Through With Us
Still weighing the options? Tell us how your calls flow today and we will point you at the right fit, or at the pairing that covers both sides.