FreePBX 18 and Asterisk 23/24

FreePBX Development
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1

Hey all,

I looked around Github but haven’t really been able to find anything on what’s coming and planned for FreePBX 18, and it’s default version Asterisk 23 or 24.

Obviously the GA date is Jan 1st, 2027, we know that. And it hasn’t started development yet.

If anyone knows where the development plans or discussions are, I’d love to know, but I do have a couple ideas myself, including

  • PHP 8.5 (GA 11/20/2025)
  • New builtin operator panel, to obsolete FOP2 & iSymphony
  • Debian 13 by default, but replace it with Debian 14 “Forky”, to be released Around June-August 2027

If PHP 8.5 were to be the PHP version, a HUGE note is this quite large deprecation:

Although there are more big deprecations since 8.2.

2

The versions page[1] has some dates, including dev start time and some details. Speaking for Asterisk our 24 release will be middle of October 2026.

[1] https://sangomakb.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FP/pages/653197359/FreePBX+Versions

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3

Yep, I saw looking at that page, interesting how Debian 14 will be default for PBX 19 which will be only 1 1/2 years after PBX 18 (not the usual 3 years)

4

Asterisk 24 release October 21st 2026, actually, after looking at the calendar.

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5

Then will PBX 18 likely be Ast 24 by default?

6

Someone will probably pipe in later for FreePBX but this is probably what will happen:

  • Starting with FreePBX 17, the FreePBX GA release will default to the most recent Asterisk STA release available at the time, and the GA release will transition its default to the next Asterisk Long Term Support (LTS) release as soon as it is made available (appx. 3-4 months after initial GA release).
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7

Interesting. Generally where are the development plans & discussions for FreePBX & Asterisk? Is there feature planning for PBX 18 being done yet?

8

I can’t speak for FreePBX. For Asterisk I give a high level view at AstriCon through state of the project, and blog posts[1] occur as things develop:

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image1165×301 34 KB

Most of which have been completed and shipped. We’ve currently moved on to working on some performance work, which will be shipping in the latest releases (saving 20-30% CPU in Asterisk).

[1] Blog ⋆ Asterisk

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9

I can’t speak for FreePBX. For Asterisk I give a high level view at AstriCon through state of the project, and blog posts[1] occur as things develop:

image
image1165×301 34 KB

Most of which have been completed and shipped. We’ve currently moved on to working on some performance work, which will be shipping in the latest releases (saving 20-30% CPU in Asterisk).

[1] Blog ⋆ Asterisk

10

Discourse reference-style link syntax doesn’t work properly apparently lol

11

Do you know if there’s plans to release sngfd13 or FreePBX 17 for Deb13 officially?

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I know nothing of that. I can only speak for Asterisk with certainty.

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I think someone should start a forum or centralized discussion area for the development plans of FreePBX, as it’s pretty scattered as far as I can see lol. But yeah I get it- you’re an Asterisk guy not really FreePBX

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FreePBX v18 planning is part of my planned AstriCon 2026 talk – a great overall event to meet IRL and discuss the future of FreePBX and Asterisk! (We also held FreePBX World Summit as part of the Linux Foundation Open Source Summit over the summer with a heavy focus on K12 innovation.)

There’s a v18 milestone in the FreePBX issue-tracker repo on GitHub which has aggregated a few public thoughts as of this posting.

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