Nowadays IP Phones are becoming so popular because they are really cost saving they use internet instead of traditional phone lines so the voice quality is much better as compare to phone.IP phones can be of 2 types

1. Hardware IP Phones
2. Soft IP Phones

Hardware IP Phones are shaped like a normal phones and they can be attached with a LAN cable.But there is a condition that LAN cable should be connected to PoE switch because power and data communication will be on 1 LAN cable.

Soft IP Phones are much convienient and cost effective because there is no need for PoE switch plus no need to buy hardware phone which are much expensive as compare to soft phones.

In this post i have compilled the list of 5 best Soft IP phones.

1) X-Lite

CounterPath’s X-Lite is the market’s leading free SIP based softphone available for download. Combining voice and video calls, Instant Messaging and presence management in an intuitive and familiar interface, X-Lite helps you seamlessly transition from a traditional hard phone environment into the world of Voice over IP.

2) 3CX VOIP phone

3CX VOIP Phone is a completely FREE VOIP/SIP phone (or softphone) that allows you to use your PC or laptop as a phone. This is achieved by using the internet as a way of transmitting your voice for phone calls, instead of using traditional telephone services.  By using a connection to a VOIP provider or to any IP PBX (ie. 3CX IP PBX) you can make calls to any softphone, mobile or landline number.

3) Express Talk VoIP Softphone

Express Talk works like a telephone to let you make calls through your computer. You can call anyone via the internet who also has a softphone installed. You can also call regular telephone numbers if you have signed up with a broadband phone company or have a VoIP PBX. Connect your webcam and Express Talk will work as a video phone.

4) iaxComm

iaxComm is an Open Source softphone for the Asterisk PBX.iaxComm is cross-platform program developed on aWindows XP system.iaxComm is targeted for the Win32, Linux and Mac OS X systems.

5) Ekiga SoftPhone

Ekiga (formely known as GnomeMeeting) is an open source VoIP and video conferencing application for GNOME. Ekiga uses both the H.323 and SIP protocols. It supports many audio and video codecs, and is interoperable with other SIP compliant software and also with Microsoft NetMeeting.