3CX Live Chat vs Skype for Business comparison

3CX and Microsoft are both solutions in the Virtual Meetings category. 3CX is ranked #15 with an average rating of 7.0, while Microsoft is ranked #4 with an average rating of 7.8. 3CX holds a 1.8% mindshare in VM, compared to Microsoft’s 13.2% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of 3CX users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 79% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

3CX Live Chat

Read 55 3CX Live Chat reviews

270 Views
177 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Skype for Business

Read 62 Skype for Business reviews

1,894 Views
871 Comparison Views

79% willing to recommend

3CX Live Chat

Skype for Business

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 3, 2025

3CX Live Chat and Skype for Business both compete in the communication solutions category. 3CX offers simplicity and cost-effectiveness for businesses, whereas Skype for Business holds the advantage in integration and infrastructure, being well-integrated with Microsoft's suite.

Features: 3CX Live Chat offers extensive VoIP features, easy deployment, and integration with CRM systems, ideal for mobile communication. Skype for Business excels in conferencing and collaboration, integrating seamlessly with Microsoft tools, providing a comprehensive framework for video communication.

Room for Improvement: 3CX needs better integration with other systems, improved call recording, and mobile app reliability. Reports on customization shortages in live chat also exist. Skype for Business could enhance integration with non-Microsoft products and improve call quality and ease of installation.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: 3CX features straightforward deployment across cloud and on-premises setups but requires better customer support responsiveness. Skype for Business, though complex in deployment, leverages Microsoft’s support system, proving advantageous for Microsoft-centric environments.

Pricing and ROI: 3CX offers competitive pricing based on concurrent calls, yielding quick ROI for growing businesses. Bundled with Microsoft licenses, Skype for Business can be costlier, but benefits businesses integrated within the Microsoft ecosystem despite higher initial costs.

To learn more, read our detailed 3CX Live Chat vs. Skype for Business Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

3CX Live Chat vs. Skype for Business

April 2025

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Helped 851,604 peers since 2012

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

15th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IP PBX (1st), Unified Communications (2nd), Live Chat (3rd), Hosted and Cloud Based VoIP (4th)

Skype for Business

Ranking in Virtual Meetings

4th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Virtual Meetings category, the mindshare of 3CX Live Chat is 1.8%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Skype for Business is 13.2%, up from 8.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Virtual Meetings

Featured Reviews

Ahmed ACHOUR

General Manager at Beyond IT Services

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…

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Markus Schweizer

Senior Strategy Advisor at Plat4mation

Has good telephone integration but technology is outdated

We use the product for conference calls. The tool's most valuable features are its audio and chat functions. They help us save time and have good telephone integration. The solution's functionality needs to be moved to Microsoft Teams. Its technology is outdated. I have been using the tool…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The integration between the video and voice is the most valuable solution."

"3CX has a graphical user interface, and this is awesome because I don't have to have an IT person from my company in my customer's environment to set up and configure 3CX for my client. I just train the customer."

"Easy management console access through web browsers with a good interface to Outlook and multiple CRM systems."

"The integration with SMS has been helpful. That's how a lot of customers prefer to communicate nowadays. It makes it convenient for the customer to reach us."

"The most valuable features of 3CX Live Chat are the ability to go straight to a call or screen-sharing and creating multiple channels from the same chat widget effectively. The ability to raise a call straight out to the cloud is fantastic, it is really useful. Additionally, it integrates very well with WordPress."

"It is SIP compliant to multiple SIP phone vendors, though it is not locked into a proprietary vendor."

"The most valuable features of 3CX Live Chat are the integration with our existing CRM allowing us to get all of the numbers synced together. The communication aspect of the solution was always working very well, the sound quality was perfect. We were able to log into the application to check which users were using the solution and if they were in a call or not. Additionally, the solution integrates well with other CRMs."

"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."

More 3CX Live Chat pros

"Video conferencing to hold virtual meetings helps to prevent employee displacement, where everyone can now enjoy the comfort of their own offices."

"There are free versions of the solution available."

"Skype for Business is good for meetings and instant messaging."

"The most valuable features of Skype for Business include its persistent chat, Edge Server, Reverse Proxy, front-end server, back-end server, and business calling capabilities, among others."

"The ability to mute everyone else is pretty useful when there is a large audience."

"We like the tools our administrator can use to identify which calls had quality issues and why. This makes troubleshooting our user experience somewhat easier."

"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."

"What is most valuable about Skype for Business is that almost everyone knows about it and almost everyone has it. You will be able to reach a large number of people."

More Skype for Business pros

Cons

"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."

"The analytics need to have a granular depth on how the customer details and the data sends information through this medium."

"Some customers want to integrate a CRM solution with 3CX, but it's not compatible."

"It needs the option for the CS rep to stop recording when a credit card number is recited by the customer."

"There should be an option to save some extensions."

"The solution could improve the web meeting feature. There is a lot of competition from all the other applications that are out there, such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom. I find I do not use it that much. I do not know how much effort they are putting into the web meeting part of the program but it could improve."

"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."

"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."

More 3CX Live Chat cons

"I venture to say that 30% of the people using this solution at our company have had issues with stability, due to the volatility and crashes."

"There are issues with the bandwidth, particularly for external meetings,"

"The video quality could be improved, possibly due to internet connection issues."

"The solution has been discontinued by Microsoft."

"The integration with Outlook could be improved."

"The group feature of Skype for Business needs improvement. It should also be improved for online lectures."

"The tool needs to have a dynamic file updating feature, so people you share a file with could update the file dynamically, all at once, all at the same time."

"Skype's overall connectivity functionality or ability is one area with room for improvement."

More Skype for Business cons

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."

"We used a yearly license depending on the customer's requirements, and the customers did not complain about the pricing."

"Switching from POTS or PRI to SIP Trunk save the customer real costs. ROI is seen in less than a year."

"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 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."

"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."

"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."

"There is no add-on costing on the standard fees."

More 3CX Live Chat pricing and cost advice

"The licensing is billed on a yearly basis."

"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."

"We negotiated a fair price with Microsoft. It is definitely worthwhile to negotiate with them for the best price for your solution."

"We purchased an open license."

"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 are using the subscription-based version of Skype for Business. There is a free version of the solution."

"The cost of Skype for Business is incorporated into our Office 365 licenses."

"Skype for Business' pricing is reasonable."

More Skype for Business pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Real Estate/Law Firm

Government

Educational Organization

89%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about 3CX Live Chat?

The solution is stable.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with 3CX Live Chat?

The reporting and dashboards of 3CX could be improved.

See all answers

What do you like most about Skype for Business?

The solution’s video quality is fine.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

Comparisons

Yeastar S-Series VoIP PBX vs 3CX Live Chat

Compared 36% of the time

Kamailio SIP Server vs 3CX Live Chat

Compared 24% of the time

Fortinet FortiVoice vs 3CX Live Chat

Compared 21% of the time

Yeastar Cloud PBX vs 3CX Live Chat

Compared 19% of the time

More 3CX Live Chat Competitors

Webex vs Skype for Business

Compared 27% of the time

Cisco Unified Communications vs Skype for Business

Compared 26% of the time

TeamViewer vs Skype for Business

Compared 15% of the time

Zoom vs Skype for Business

Compared 14% of the time

GoToMeeting vs Skype for Business

Compared 7% of the time

More Skype for Business Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Live Chat

May 2025

Download 3CX Live Chat product report

Buyer's Guide

Skype for Business

April 2025

Download Skype for Business product report

Also Known As

3CX PBX

Skype for Business Plan 1, Skype for Business Plan 2, Lync Server

Overview

Connect with your website visitors for free with the 3CX Live Chat plugin. With more than 1,900,000 downloads, 3CX Live Chat is the most popular, effective and reliable live chat plugin for WordPress. Increase conversions and boost customer satisfaction by communicating directly with your website visitors in real-time.

Integrate with 3CX for a multichannel communications suite including voice and video (requires 3CX V16). Get 3CX for free for one year for unlimited users hosted by 3CX, in your own cloud account or on-premise on Windows or Linux.

Easy and convenient for visitors
Build rapport with potential customers via live chat
Increase sales
Reduce customer support line costs by using live chat
Learn to understand the pain points of your customers

FEATURES

Simple and clean UI for all users
Option to elevate a live chat to a call or video call
Free iOS or Android apps to respond to messages through a smartphone
Ability to transfer chats to other agents
Agent’s picture is shown in the live chatbox
Customizable chatbox. Add a company logo, change the colors of the chatbox
All chats are saved in chat history
Dedicated storage system for all offline messages
Create unlimited agents to handle live chats and calls
Customizable offline message form
Supports animations in the chatbox
Ability to choose whether you want to accept or decline a chat

3CX

Skype for Business offers features including presence, IM, voice and video calls, online meetings, conferencing, and telephony solutions that support enterprise-level collaboration requirements. Skype for Business Record meetings, share your screen, and annotate PowerPoint for real-time collaboration with up to 250 people and use whiteboard, polls, Q&A, and built-in IM during your business meetings to make them more productive. Skype for Business provides new client experience, Skype for Business Server provides several new features to improve manageability of on-premises servers and hybrid solutions. Skype for Business also supports the Lync client experience so that you can choose a phased upgrade approach to the new client experience for users. Skype for Business is also an integral part of Microsoft Office 365, providing PSTN Conferencing, Cloud PBX, PSTN Calling, and Skype Meeting Broadcast capabilities to Office 365 users.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

EmpireCLS Worldwide Chauffeured Services,LA Fitness, MedcoEnergi International, Tampa General Hospital, and HopewellHoldings Limited.

Buyer's Guide

3CX Live Chat vs. Skype for Business

April 2025

Free Report: 3CX Live Chat vs. Skype for Business

Find out what your peers are saying about 3CX Live Chat vs. Skype for Business and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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