Dialpad vs Aircall vs JustCall vs RingCentral (What VoIP Phone Should I Use?)

The Incumbent: RingCentral

Think of RingCentral as the "Salesforce" of the VoIP world. They "integrate" with almost everything (what that even means is many things...), does that mean it'll do what you want it to do? Great question! They have all the standard business VoIP features—company department lines, employee lines, SMS/MMS, IVR menus (press 1 for x department, press 2 for...). It's not a question of features—they've been around for a while.

Okay, that all sounds great! Right? But what's RingCentral like to actually use? Well, painful (I'm finding myself writing more and more about the "joy" component to using software). There's zero joy in using it. It feels like you're using archaic and unintuitive software. Why is this the case? Well, like Salesforce, since there are such gigantic enterprises on RingCentral, they are in that messy area where they really can't innovate much without upsetting their highest paying enterprise customers who ultimately just want things to "stay the same".

I've personally implemented RingCentral to a myriad of teams 6+ years ago (some of which are still using it to this day), and well, I regret it (now). At the time, we all got sold on their "native integration" marketing shpeal. Although, to be fair to past Alex—at the time RingCentral's largest competitors were not even cloud-based, so they were a huge upgrade at the time. The setup process at the time was (and still is) incredibly painful. They expect to be working with an IT department, not an agile team. So they used to be a great solution, but are really getting eaten alive by the more modern software listed below—lets move on.

The AI Innovator: Dialpad 🌟

Dialpad is the only VoIP listed here that actually feels like a modern VoIP solution built for the teams actually using the tool (but also scaleable to companies of all sizes). Of everything listed here, we chose to use Dialpad internally—which should tell you something.

Their desktop app feels modern. Their mobile app feels modern. While all of these othes

The real standout features of Dialpad are their AI capabilities. They are large enough to where they've been able to acquire and natively bake in a voice AI company. What this allows for is powerful features like sentiment analysis, which makes reviewing calls a complete joy.

Unfortunately, A2P (Application to Person) messaging is starting to get worse and worse, and Dialpad now charges on-top of your monthly fee for sending messages. This is because businesses have taken advantage of the P2P (Person to Person) messaging, and carriers and the government have stepped in.

At the end of the day, Dialpad is still the best tool in the space, and is worth the investment if you need a VoIP in your business. It enables API access, which allows you to do things like automatically logging SMS and calls + recordings into your CRM—something that will never exist when using a traditional P2P phone number. It also provides a more work/business focused number for the occasional call with a customer and business-focused relationship tracking.

The Integrated VoIP: Aircall

If you're looking for one of the best VoIP solutions on the market and native, out-of-the-box native integration is important to you, then you'll be in good hands with Aircall would be your best bet.

While this might sound slightly confusing as we have Dialpad listed as our "Top Pick", that's because things get quite a bit more complex when you look holistically across the VoIP space. We for example chose Dialpad as the Voice over IP solution for our business, but as an integration company, we aren't afraid of building out a custom Copper + Dialpad Integration (their native integration works, but doesn't sync SMS messages). That said, we know we aren't the average company, and to justify investing in that doesn't make sense for many companies.

Promising But Inconsistent: JustCall

JustCall is focused on making sales and support calls easier, especially when paired with CRMs like Copper. On paper, it promises click-to-dial, SMS, and automatic call logging so reps don’t need to waste time copy/pasting numbers or updating records.

In practice, though, the experience isn’t always that smooth. One big limitation: there's not a true click-to-dial directly from the CRM. Users often have to work around it (or test competitors like Dialpad’s Chrome extension), which adds friction where speed should matter most. Call and SMS logging, while "supported" is also inconsistent. Sometimes the activity lands in the CRM, sometimes it doesn't. That’s a common pain point with many native integrations: they rarely have proper re-triggering systems in place, so the sync just fails quietly.

Overall, JustCall does the job for teams that want a simple, affordable calling platform with decent CRM connections. But if you rely heavily on wanting seamless one-click calling with reliable activity logs, you may run into some frustrations.