Fonoster: The open-source alternative to Twilio

Fonoster Inc is researching an innovative Programmable Telecommunications Stack that will allow businesses to connect telephony services with the Internet entirely through a cloud-based utility.

Warning

Exploring Fonoster: We encourage new users to initially explore Fonoster's features through our SaaS (Software as a Service) option. This platform is free to start and offers a comprehensive experience of what Fonoster can do.

Installation Advisory: Please note that the current installation process for Fonoster is complex. We are actively working to simplify this process. We recommend waiting for our upcoming v0.6.x release before attempting a direct installation. These future releases are designed to offer a more user-friendly installation experience.

Thank you for your interest in Fonoster. We are committed to enhancing your experience with every release.

Features

The most notable features of Fonoster 0.4 are:

• Multitenancy
• Easy deployment of PBX functionalities
• Programmable Voice Applications
• NodeJS SDK
• Support for Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)
• Secure API endpoints with Let's Encrypt
• Authentication with OAuth2
• Authentication with JWT
• Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
• Plugins-based Command-line Tool
• Support for Google Speech APIs
• Secrets managed by Hashicorp Vault

Code Examples

A Voice Application is a server that takes control of the flow in a call. A Voice Application can use any combination of the following verbs:

• Answer - Accepts an incoming call
• Hangup - Closes the call
• Play - Takes a URL or file and streams the sound back to the calling party
• Say - Takes a text, synthesizes the text into audio, and streams back the result
• Gather - Waits for DTMF or speech events and returns back the result
• SGather - Returns a stream for future DTMF and speech results
• Dial - Passes the call to an Agent or a Number at the PSTN
• Record - It records the voice of the calling party and saves the audio on the Storage sub-system
• Mute - It tells the channel to stop sending media, effectively muting the channel
• Unmute - It tells the channel to allow media flow

Voice Application Example:

const { VoiceServer } = require("@fonoster/voice");

const serverConfig = {
  pathToFiles: `${process.cwd()}/sounds`,
};

new VoiceServer(serverConfig).listen(
  async (req, res) => {
    console.log(req);
    await res.answer();
    await res.play(`sound:${req.selfEndpoint}/sounds/hello-world.sln16`);
    await res.hangup();
  }
);

// your app will live at http://127.0.0.1:3000 
// and you can easily publish it to the Internet with:
// ngrok http 3000

Everything in Fonoster is an API first, and initiating a call is no exception. You can use the SDK to start a call with a few lines of code.

Example of originating a call with the SDK:

const Fonoster = require("@fonoster/sdk");
const callManager = new Fonoster.CallManager();

callManager.call({
 from: "9842753574",
 to: "17853178070",
 webhook: "https://5a2d2ea5d84d.ngrok.io/voiceapp"
})
 .then(console.log)
 .catch(console.error);

Getting Started

To get started with Fonoster, use the following resources:

• Deploying Fonoster with Docker
• Getting started with Fonoster
• Connecting Fonoster with Dialogflow
• Using Google Speech APIs
• How we created an open-source alternative to Twilio and why it matters

Give a Star! ⭐

Please give it a star if you like this project or plan to use it. Thanks 🙏

Bugs and Feedback

For bugs, questions, and discussions, please use the Github Issues

Contributing

For contributing, please see the following links:

• Contribution Documents
• Contributors

Pedro Sanders	Efrain Peralta	Wardner Lara	Richard HC	Hoan Luu Huu	Speedy Monster
Brayan Munoz V.	Dede kurniawan	gabriel duncan	Prasurjya Pran Borah	Hector Ventura	Aman Rawat
0xflotus	Osama Sehgol	Paul Sütterlin	Riad Vargas	Shailendra Paliwal	The Gitter Badger
Tom Sebastian	Yuri	cdrsociate	pavan	nrjchnd	Salami Bashir
Shivam Deepak Chaudhary	showf68	telenautical	Wisdom Elendu	Manish	Judge Godwins
Jon Chin	Harish Chander	Gary Barnes	Fidal Mathew	Dung Duc Huynh (Kaka)	Ciprian
Christopher Adigun	Bruno Gomes	Bruno Arueira	Antonius Ostermann	Ali Firat ARI	Alex
Albert E. Hidalgo Taveras

Sponsors

We're glad to be supported by respected companies and individuals from several industries.

Find all our supporters here

Become a Github Sponsor

Authors

• Pedro Sanders

License

Copyright (C) 2024 by Fonoster Inc. MIT License (see LICENSE for details).