Fourwaves
Fourwaves follows its participant inbox with a week of admin fixes and security hardening.
Comparison · Meetings
Asterisk vs Element Call
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Asterisk and Element Call — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Asterisk vs Element Call: at a glance
What is Asterisk?
The three-branch cycle closes: 20, 22 and 23 all promote to final with the same 28-issue set.
The release round that opened on August 7 has finished. Asterisk 20.21.0, 22.11.0 and 23.5.0 all tagged within a minute of each other, each carrying 39 commits from 16 authors, 28 resolved issues and zero security advisories. The counts are identical across all three branches, which is the same backport-in-lockstep pattern the certified track and the June security round both followed.
What is Element Call?
Element Call starts moving to new LiveKit transports and falls back to remote SFUs when needed.
Element Call ships a release candidate roughly every two to three weeks. v0.28.1-rc.1 adds a breaking change that falls back to publishing media on a remote SFU when possible, supports migrating to new LiveKit transport types and endpoints, and fixes room v12 power-level compatibility. It also brings in a MatrixRTC SDK and patches several dependency security advisories. The previous rc added a quick audio menu and redacted analytics IDs from rageshakes.
Asterisk vs Element Call: editorial side-by-side
Asterisk
5.0MEETINGS
The three-branch cycle closes: 20, 22 and 23 all promote to final with the same 28-issue set.
◆ Current state
The release round that opened on August 7 has finished. Asterisk 20.21.0, 22.11.0 and 23.5.0 all tagged within a minute of each other, each carrying 39 commits from 16 authors, 28 resolved issues and zero security advisories. The counts are identical across all three branches, which is the same backport-in-lockstep pattern the certified track and the June security round both followed.
◆ Where it's heading
Nothing about the shape has changed: three mainline branches plus a certified track, one fix set, promoted together. The rc1-to-rc2-to-final progression narrowed from 27 issues to a single websocket segfault fix and then closed, which is a cycle converging on schedule. Release bodies still publish counts and links rather than user-facing notes, so the feed measures release discipline rather than product direction.
◆ Prediction
Expect the certified track to pick up this same fix set in its next cert release, following the lag it showed after the June round. The next mainline round should open with rc1 tags on all three branches again.
Element Call
5.0MEETINGS
Element Call starts moving to new LiveKit transports and falls back to remote SFUs when needed.
◆ Current state
Element Call ships a release candidate roughly every two to three weeks. v0.28.1-rc.1 adds a breaking change that falls back to publishing media on a remote SFU when possible, supports migrating to new LiveKit transport types and endpoints, and fixes room v12 power-level compatibility. It also brings in a MatrixRTC SDK and patches several dependency security advisories. The previous rc added a quick audio menu and redacted analytics IDs from rageshakes.
◆ Where it's heading
With the MatrixRTC protocol cutover finished in August, the team is now working on the media transport layer itself: how calls find and publish to SFUs and how LiveKit endpoints change underneath them. Packaging the RTC logic as an SDK suggests it is meant to be reused beyond the Element Call app.
◆ Prediction
Expect a 0.28.1 final and follow-ups to the LiveKit transport migration; whether the MatrixRTC SDK gets its own release isn't clear from the entries.
Alternatives to Asterisk and Element Call
Other Meetings products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Asterisk or Element Call.
HOMER
HOMER 11.0.369 fixes S3 auth on Ceph-based storage and stops compaction memory growth.
JW Player
JW Player moves CMAF VOD into the dashboard, adds AV1, and opens Broadcast Live to audio-only feeds.
rtpengine
rtpengine opens the mr26.3 branch with a rollback message and leaner call state.
Nextcloud Talk Desktop
Nextcloud Talk Desktop 2.3.3 adds accessibility options and bundles Talk v25.0.6.
Nextcloud Talk
Nextcloud Talk patches v22 and v23 while v25 stable sits five weeks past its last RC.
See all Asterisk alternatives → · See all Element Call alternatives →
Recent activity from Asterisk and Element Call
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1d agoElement CallElement Call 0.28.1 rc adds remote-SFU fallback and LiveKit migration
- 22d agoElement CallQuick audio menu, bell reaction sound and redacted analytics IDs
- 1mo agoElement Callv0.26.1-rc.1
- 1mo agoElement Callv0.26.0-rc.2
- 1mo agoElement Callv0.26.0-rc.1
- 2mo agoElement CallMatrixRTC legacy mode removed — all calls now run on the new protocol ⚡
- 2mo agoAsterisk22.11.0 promotes to final with 28 issues resolved
- 2mo agoAsterisk23.5.0 closes the cycle on the newest mainline branch
- 2mo agoAsterisk20.21.0 carries the same fix set back to the LTS line
- 2mo agoAsterisk23.5.0-rc2: single fix for a websocket PONG segfault
- 2mo agoAsterisk20.21.0-rc2 takes the same one-commit websocket fix
- 2mo agoAsterisk22.11.0-rc2 mirrors the websocket PONG crash fix
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Asterisk and Element Call?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Asterisk and Element Call are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 5.0 vs 5.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Asterisk better than Element Call?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Asterisk and Element Call are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 5.0 vs 5.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Meetings products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Asterisk?
Top Asterisk alternatives in Meetings are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Asterisk alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/asterisk for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Element Call?
Top Element Call alternatives in Meetings are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Element Call alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/element-call for the full list with editorial commentary on each.