Short answer: OpenPhone and Grasshopper are the two incumbent phone systems a small-business buyer cross-shops when all it wants is a second line and a professional-sounding phone presence. OpenPhone is a phone-number app — every line behaves like a mobile app with call and text on it. Grasshopper is a virtual PBX — incoming calls on published numbers route through extensions and menus. Neither integrates a wide channel set, so the choice turns on operating model, not capability breadth. For a buyer who outgrows both lanes, one clearly labeled section below states where Devotel Orbit sits against the same rows; the rest of this post is a third-party-only comparison.
1. Where each sits
OpenPhone — the phone-number app. Each purchased number behaves like an app on the team's phones: make and receive calls, send and receive texts inside the same conversation thread. That model suits a desk-of-one to desk-of-many where the team answers on their own devices. The team's shared inbox shape — one inbox for calls, texts, and voicemail across the team's lines — is still an app, not a switchboard.
Grasshopper — the virtual PBX. Its numbers are front-door numbers: callers reach a greeting, a menu, or an extension, and the system forwards to the right device. That model suits a buyer that wants callers to hear one company voice even when the team is one person plus a contractor. The extensions-plus-greetings shape is a switchboard, not a per-line handset.
The SMB buyer chooses between these by preference of working on a per-line app (OpenPhone) or on a routed front door (Grasshopper) — two different positions in the phone-presence market, not one being the other's newer edition.
2. Evaluation axes — what to score before pricing enters
Five dimensions separate an SMB phone system on the row level, and this head-to-head keeps each cell defensible: porting mechanics, IVR/menu depth, team inbox shape, omnichannel breadth, and the migration path a switch follows.
Number porting. Both port incumbent numbers in; Grasshopper also underpins the port-out on export — a paid or free move a comparison should name. OpenPhone exposes a bulk portability check and in-flow LOA signing; a buyer leaving an incumbent should read the export instructions before pricing.
IVR and menus. Grasshopper's extension-menu model is its heritage — the buyer composes a greeting-driven menu and chooses a forwarding target per extension. OpenPhone's phone-menu is a lighter preset; the team chooses a ring order or lists specialists by number. Neither builds a menu from a canvas the way a programmable voice platform does.
Team inbox. OpenPhone's single model — one conversation thread per contact across calls, texts, and voicemails — is the strongest per-line inbox between the two. Grasshopper's inbox organizes extension routing outputs rather than conversation threads; a team needing accountable assignment on shared numbers reads the row accordingly.
Omnichannel breadth — the recurring SMB constraint. Both incumbents cover voice plus SMS inside the US/Canada footprint; a team that needs a WhatsApp line, a branded email channel, or an AI-receptionist handoff pays for a second vendor on either. Devotel Orbit's frame-in section below maps the same rows onto its shipped-channel set.
Migration friction — a decision input, not an afterthought. A platform buyer checks one thing by behavior: what export looks like. OpenPhone publishes a workspace export of contacts and history; Grasshopper's operational docs lean on summaries. A friction row scores which incumbent hands the buyer back its own history cleanly, because an incumbent that exports poorly is an incumbent the buyer stays with involuntarily.
3. The head-to-head matrix
The cells below conflate nothing: Yes/No on shipped capability, Partial where the vendor covers the row with caveats a buyer should hear. Devotel Orbit's column enters for the frame-in section below, clearly labeled.
| Row | OpenPhone | Grasshopper | Devotel Orbit (frame-in) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phone-number app model (per-line app) | Yes | No | Yes |
| Virtual PBX model (extensions & menus) | No | Yes | Yes |
| Bulk porting check with LOA signing | Yes | Partial | Yes |
| Porting-history export for a departing buyer | Partial | Partial | Yes (porting history carries) |
| IVR / phone-menu to a forward target | Partial | Yes | Yes |
| Team shared inbox (per-conversation thread) | Yes | Partial | Yes |
| US/Canada coverage footprint | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| WhatsApp, RCS, email programmable channels | No | No | Yes |
| AI voice agents and an after-hours handoff | Partial | No | Yes |
| Programmable SMS (campaigns, not per-line text) | No | No | Yes |
| Migration runbook deep-link | Partial (runbook published) | No | Yes (runbook published) |
Read the cells by shape, not by count. OpenPhone wins the phone-number app rows — per-line app and the single conversation-thread team inbox — which is its segment. Grasshopper wins the virtual-PBX row set — extensions and menus — which is its segment. The omnichannel breadth and AI-voice-agent rows both lean against both incumbents, and neither row is a tie.
4. Where each still wins — the honest-fit section
Being honest about an incumbent's lane is how comparisons earn trust, and both lanes are real.
OpenPhone still wins the team that wants every line to behave like a modern phone app: a desk-of-one to a desk-of-many, US/Canada-only, per-line texting as the team's and customer's one channel. The app ergonomics — one dial pad, one shared inbox — read against programmatic-routing weight, and the buyer who knows it never wants a canvas of routing logic should pick OpenPhone.
Grasshopper still wins the small office that wants one published front-door number with a professional menu, even when the actual team is one person and a contractor. Extensions, a greeting-composed menu, and a forward target per line remain the simpler build for callers who expect a switchboard. The virtual-PBX shape still earns where phone numbers are front doors, not individual apps.
A buyer whose footprint still ends at voice plus SMS on US/Canada numbers keeps the incumbent it already has — this page is for the pair where that footprint is about to sprout a WhatsApp line, a campaign-messaging lane, or an always-on AI handoff.
5. Devotel Orbit frame-in — consolidation choice, clearly labeled
This section is the one Orbit-in-frame paragraph in an otherwise third-party-only post, and it comes with a disclosure, not a neutrality claim. Devotel Orbit publishes head-to-head pages for the full comparison registry on /compare, and those pages argue Orbit's position by design. What they answer is the consolidation question both SMB incumbents deliberately leave open: when the team's footprint grew past voice plus per-line SMS, does the team keep its phone system and add second vendor logins for WhatsApp, email campaigns, RCS, and the AI handoff, or consolidate onto one account?
An Orbit frame keeps the same phone-system primitives — local and toll-free numbers, shared inbox assignment, IVR on a visual canvas — and adds programmable SMS and MMS, WhatsApp Business, RCS, email, and a native AI voice-agent runtime on one pay-as-you-go bill. A buyer who elects consolidation reuses the migration runbook: migrate from OpenPhone to Orbit, runbook — the worked example that exports the numbers first, rebuilds phone-menu presets on a canvas, re-authors snippets as reusable content templates, and CSV-imports the contact list. Orbit has not yet published a Grasshopper-specific runbook; the same ordered per-family arc applies. A buyer electing to keep the incumbent should still use Orbit's /compare registry to score the choice on public cell rows rather than vendor-conversation claims.
Frequently asked questions
Is OpenPhone or Grasshopper better for a 5-person team?
OpenPhone if the team takes its own per-line numbers into one shared app; Grasshopper if the team wants one front-door number distributing to internal extensions. Both are SMB-rated fits for the operating-model question first.
Which ports numbers out more cleanly on exit?
OpenPhone publishes the export of contacts and history; Grasshopper covers the port-out of numbers and leans on summaries for history. Make the exit check before pricing enters — migration friction is a decision input, not an afterthought.
Can either replace an omnichannel platform?
No. Both incumbents cover voice plus per-line SMS in US/Canada. A buyer adding a WhatsApp line, campaign-messaging, or an AI-receptionist handoff buys a second vendor regardless of which incumbent it picks; the Orbit frame-in section above maps that consolidation choice.
Where does the OpenPhone-specific runbook live?
The migrate-from-OpenPhone-to-Orbit runbook, migrate-from-openphone-to-orbit-runbook-2026, walks the ordered per-family arc — port numbers first, rebuild phone menus on the journey canvas, re-author snippets as shared content templates, then import contacts — and closes on an honest-fit section naming where OpenPhone remains the right tool.
Published 22 September 2026.