The Best 8×8 Alternatives

According to our research, RingCentral is the best 8×8 alternative, offering a better price and more external connections than the popular VoIP provider. Still, 8×8 is one of the best options out there, particularly for smaller businesses and sales teams, thanks to its larger feature catalog and robust security offerings.

Fortunately, no matter what kind of business you're running, there is a VoIP provider for you. We've conducted hours of unbiased, independent research to find the best 8×8 alternatives around, so you can make an informed decision about your business communication needs.

If you need help finding a VoIP provider for your business, try our helpful VoIP comparison tool to compare price quotes, or read on to learn more about our top five 8×8 alternatives:

1. RingCentral – best overall VoIP provider
2. Vonage – best training features
3. GoTo Connect – best value option
4. Ooma – great customer experience
5. Nextiva – great for professional services

To help you find the best VoIP providers for your business, this guide will also answer the following questions:

• Should you just stick with 8×8?
• How did we compare 8×8 to other VoIP providers?
• Can you do better than 8×8?
• Frequently Asked Questions

1. RingCentral – Best Overall VoIP Provider

RingCentral is the best 8×8 alternative and our top-rated VoIP provider overall. It offers excellent customer support, robust scalability for businesses of all sizes, and plenty of features. Additionally, RingCentral offers the most external connections of any provider in our research including 8×8, allowing it to integrate with the services like CRM, email, API, and many others. Additionally, RingCentral boasted our highest scalability score with 4.9 out of 5, thanks to features like call queue, local numbers, and more.

Our research also found that it's also the best VoIP provider for hospitality, retail, healthcare, and customer service, because it offers features like spam prevention, call transcripts, and task management in all plans, which 8×8 doesn't do.

RingCentral pricing vs 8×8 pricing

Compared to 8×8, RingCentral is definitely a better value for your business. While 8×8 offers some more affordable plans to start, they are missing a lot of key features, whereas RingCentral provides those features at a lower price point.

More specifically, RingCentral offers four pricing plans, as opposed to the six pricing plans from 8×8. RingCentral plans start at $20 per user per month, with more expensive plans going for $28 per user per month, $35 per user per month, and $50 per user per month respectively. For more information about RingCentral pricing, check out the table below, or cut to the chase and get a price quote for your specific business needs, here:

Is RingCentral better than 8×8?

Yes, RingCentral is the only VoIP provider on this list that our research found is better than 8×8. With more external connections and a better price, the popular VoIP provider just barely edges out the competition, as both offer the same level of security, scalability, and customer support.

In fact, 8×8 offers more features and better security protections, making it the best option for smaller businesses. However, that just wasn't enough to beat out RingCentral overall, which is why RingCentral is our top-rated VoIP provider.

2. Vonage – Best for Training Features

Vonage was quite popular a few years ago, when its commercials became something of a cultural phenomenon. However, that doesn't necessarily translate into a better VoIP provider, although Vonage is our second best-rated alternative to 8×8.

Vonage doesn't offer nearly as much as 8×8 or RingCentral when it comes to the areas that count, but it's close. It offers a comparable feature catalog and scalability but lacks pretty badly when it comes to external connections, customer support, and security. Still, it comes in at a notably lower price, which could make it a solid affordable pick if you're on a strict budget.

Vonage pricing vs 8×8 pricing

This is one of the areas where Vonage shines over 8×8. The prices are lower and less confusing, as Vonage only offers three pricing plans, as opposed to 8×8's six pricing plans.

Vonage pricing plans start at $20 per user per month, with its two other plans coming in at $30 per user per month and $40 per user per month respectively. Again, the starting price is a bit higher than 8×8, but the value you get is higher than those starting plans, which is why we give Vonage the edge on pricing. For more information on Vonage pricing, check out the table below:

Is Vonage better than 8×8?

According to our research, Vonage is not better than 8×8. While the pricing is a bit better, 8×8 wins on everything from features and security to scalability and external connections, which makes it hard to beat.

It is a lot closer than you might think, though, as Vonage's price does give a bit of a nod towards those tight budget companies, and it does offer a lot of helpful tools when it comes to training, like call recording and call monitoring, although those service do cost a bit extra. Those working in industries where regular training and onboarding is important, might consider choosing Vonage over 8×8.

3. GoTo Connect – Best Value

If you're in the market for any kind of business communication tool, you've no doubt come across the GoTo family of apps. From GoTo Meetings to GoToMyPC, the company offers a suite of communication tools for businesses around the world. However, that doesn't mean it's better than 8×8, and our research found that its main draw is the better value.

In fact, compared to 8×8, GoTo Connect has fewer features, fewer external connections, fewer customer support options, and worse security. GoTo Connect actually did the worst on external features, scoring only a 2.6 out of 5 in our research. Still, the better price and higher customer score mean that the value is there, and you can get more features for less money when you go with GoTo Connect.

GoTo Connect pricing vs 8×8 pricing

This is GoTo Connect's main draw against 8×8. The price, and more specifically the value, are quite impressive, offering the majority of features at even the lowest pricing point.

GoTo Connect pricing offers only three plans, compared to 8×8 offering six plans, and the most affordable comes in at $24 per user per month, with other plans costing $29 per user per month and $39 per user per month respectively. For more information about GoTo Connect pricing, take a look at the table below:

Is GoTo Connect better than 8×8?

As we mentioned, RingCentral is the only provider on this list better than 8×8, so no, GoTo Connect is not better than the popular VoIP provider. Still, it has its merits, offering a great value for the price.

In fact, GoTo Connect offers the best price/value on this entire list, making it a great budget pick for a business on a budget. Still, if you need customer support or lots of external connections, you might want to look elsewhere.

4. Ooma – Best Customer Experience

While research can do wonders for understanding VoIP software, the reality is that sometimes, people just like one more than the other. That is very much the case with Ooma, which had one of the highest customer experience scores on our list. However, the numbers don't exactly match up, as Ooma offers fewer features and fewer external connections than 8×8 all at a similar price and value.

Even worse, in an age of security breaches, Ooma offers the undeniably worst security on this list, scoring a dismal 1 out of 5 in our research. No end-to-end encryption, no HIPAA compliance, no multi-factor authentication, and lax password rules. Simply put, if you want to make sure your company is secure, Ooma is not the VoIP provider for you.

Ooma pricing vs 8×8 pricing

Ooma and 8×8 scored similarly in the pricing category, with both offering lots of plans but arguably not as much value as they could be offering. Particularly when it comes to security, no pricing plan will get you what you need, no matter how much you pay.

Ooma offers four different US-facing pricing plans, starting at about $20 per user per month, with more expensive plans coming in at $25 per user per month, $28 per user per month, and $50 per user per month respectively. For more information about Ooma pricing, check out our pricing table below:

Is Ooma better than 8×8?

No. While customers seem to enjoy using Ooma, likely due to its ease of use, the reality is that as far as features and functionality is concerned, it just doesn't match up.

Security is the biggest hit too. Businesses are losing millions of dollars to security breaches and skimping on it in 2023 is just not a smart move. Considering Ooma had the lowest score possible when it came to security, it's safe to say that no customer score could make up for that.

So, who should use Ooma? Our research found that Ooma's customer support features are pretty strong, so those in retail or customer support might consider the system, especially given its high customer ratings, but the security risks will be ever-present until the company upgrades a number of areas.

5. Nextiva – Best for Professional Services

Many businesses are in the market for a VoIP provider in the long term, hoping the software will grow with the business. 8×8 is great for that, as it offers a lot of scalability. However, unlike 8×8, Nextiva is not built for that kind of growth, getting one of the lowest scalability scores on this list at 2.9 out of 5, lacking features like call queue, local numbers, call barge, and call whisper.

That doesn't mean it isn't right for some businesses though. Professional services like consultants, accountants, and contractors likely won't need these advanced features, and you still get a lot of other options like solid customer support and plenty of standard features.

Learn more in our 8×8 vs Nextiva comparison guide

Nextiva pricing vs 8×8 pricing

Nextiva is a smidge more affordable than your average VoIP provider, but it's not by much. Each plan offers a solid set of features, but the overall value of Nextiva isn't much compared to 8×8 or other VoIP providers, and scalability is again the biggest issue.

Nextiva offers three different pricing plans, starting at $24 per user per month, with more expensive plans costing $28 per user per month and $38 per user per month. For more information about Nextiva pricing, check out our table below:

Is Nextiva better than 8×8?

Now that we're here at the bottom of the list, you can safely assume that no, Nextiva is not better than 8×8. The scalability issue is a big hit against Nextiva, but just in a general sense, it didn't overtake 8×8 on any major category. 8×8 has more features, better customer support, more external connections, better security, and vastly better scalability, making it the clear choice here.

Still, Nextiva does have its place in the VoIP world, with individual professionals opting for it thanks to the lack of advanced features that they just wouldn't need. That, combined with the slightly lower price make it a good option as long as you don't plan on growing with the software.

Should You Choose 8×8 Anyway?

While all these alternatives certainly have merit, our research shows that 8×8 is actually a pretty solid option when it comes to VoIP. In fact, as we've mentioned a few times now, RingCentral is the only VoIP provider we can comfortably say is better than 8×8 thanks to price and feature catalog, but that isn't for everyone.

Our research found that 8×8 is ideal for smaller businesses thanks to the easy-to-use platform, robust customer support, and unmatched security features. The vast array of pricing plans (six, which is more than any other provider) makes it easy to find an affordable plan that fits your particular needs as a small business.

For larger businesses though, 8×8 can get a bit too expensive to get access to advanced features, with its most expensive plans ($140 per user per month) dwarfing the expensive plans from other providers.

8×8 pricing 

Suffice it to say, 8×8 is not a bad choice, although depending on your priorities, another provider above could suit your needs better.

If pricing is top of your list, to compare bespoke price quotes and find the best deal for your business you can use our VoIP price comparison tool.

How Did We Compare 8×8 to Other VoIP Providers?

Here at Tech.co, we're committed to providing business owners and decision makers with unbiased, independent research on a wide range of digital resources and tools used to make your daily operations a bit easier.

When it comes to this guide, our research team has spent countless hours analyzing VoIP providers to narrow down the strengths and weaknesses of each one, so you can make the most informed decision about your business. As for what kind of criteria we use to measure providers against each other, here are a few metrics we evaluated during our research:

• Price – Obviously one of the most important factors in a business decision, we analyzed the available pricing plans for VoIP providers.
• Features – VoIP providers come with all kinds of unique features, and we compared the catalogs of each one.
• External connections – We research how each provider integrates with other systems, like mobile apps, desktop phones, CRM software, analytics platforms, and email servers.
• Customer support – Not everything can go smoothly, which is why we analyzed support options, like hours and availability.
• Security – Keeping your conversations private is key, which is why security comparisons were key.
• Scalability – Growing with a business is important, which is why we scored this category based on features like call queue, ring groups, and local numbers.
• Customer score – User reviews are always a valuable metric, which is why we collected reviews from various sources to see what the people think.

Take a look at our explainer page for more information about our research, where we go into more detail about our methodology and process for deciding which providers are the best for which businesses.

Frequently Asked Questions