I've been thinking recently about VoIP and OS X. I suppose a lot of people are inclined to think that VoIP on OS X doesn't go any further than Skype, or iChat. But interestingly there are some very good alternatives to these 2 apps available for OS X. I've been thinking recently about VoIP and OS X. I suppose a lot of people are inclined to think that VoIP on OS X doesn't go any further than Skype, or iChat. But interestingly there are some very good alternatives to these 2 apps available for OS X. And, might I add, it has to be said that some of the others are more convincing as a softphone.

Take into consideration that iChat is not, strictly speaking, a full-featured softphone simply because it cannot call outside the .Mac / AIM network. The other softphones listed here are what I would call full-featured, complete with PC - landline functionality, as well as the usual chat and file transfer capabilities.

So without further ado, the top softphones for Mac OS X.

1. Skype

The pre-eminent softphone is also available on Mac OS X, and while development on key features such as videoconferencing lags behind the Windows version, Skype for Mac OS X is a polished and stable application. Skype looks and feels very much like a proper native OS X app, the latest version has a sleek and minimal interface that has very little in the way of screen real estate. Skype allows a user to make free calls to any other Skype user, anywhere in the world. You can also engage in a a free video chat, again with anyone in the world.

Skype is platform independent, it doesn't matter if you are calling someone on a Windows PC or Linux, you're call will work. Same goes for video chats. Unlike iChat, Skype is a full-featured softphone. You can call any landline or cell phone anywhere in the world. You can also rent a telephone number that allows anyone to call you on Skype.

However, there are things about Skype that need some work. The demand it can place on your CPU is at times noticeable and can slow your system down. It also uses it's very own home-brewed VoIP protocol, so it's not possible to hook Skype up with a SIP-based VoIP provider. And rather annoyingly, I seem to have been getting a lot of random spam-calls on Skype recently, a trend which is probably going to grow as more people come online.

2. Gizmo

 Ah, good old Gizmo. Unlike iChat and Skype, Gizmo uses SIP. What does that mean? Well basically, you can hook any SIP-based VoIP provider into Gizmo and make your calls. It also offers support for the Asterisk PBX, making this a pretty good solution for Mac-based SMEs. Gizmo is platform independent (Mac OS X / Windows / Linux), you can make calls to anyone regardless of their OS. It offers the usual softphone call plans; free calls between Gizmo users, cheap calls to landlines and cell phones and the ability to buy a telephone number that allows non-Gizmo users to call you. It's all fairly seamless.

They also have an Adium-plugin, so you can call anyone from within Adium using Gizmo. How neat is that! I'm still looking for bad things to say about Gizmo