Though often viewed as obsolete next to newer software like Mumble, Ventrilo is still my favorite way to communicate with friends in (and sometimes out if) online gaming. It’s a VOIP software that I’m incredibly comfortable with and it takes no more than 5 minutes to learn to use.

One of the major inconveniences of the Ventrilo platform is finding a server to do your venting on in the first place. These are often costly, so setting one of your own up isn’t always an option. Luckily for you and I, the web is filled with public servers that are waiting to be put to use. In this post, I want to show you two of the best websites for finding available Ventrilo servers to use with your friends.

Game Tracker

Game Tracker is often viewed only as a way to track server information of online games. Few seem aware of how awesome GT is when it comes to finding available Ventrilo servers. It’s the best option, in my opinion.

Game Tracker’s Ventrilo listings are great because of the sorting options. Ventrilo servers are able to be sorted, ascending or descending, by rank, server name, players, and location.

As you can imagine, this is very useful when you’re looking for a server nearest to you with the lowest ping, or you’re looking for an empty server for you and friends to use on a private basis. At 50 items per page, Game Tracker has 177 pages of Ventrilo servers. That’s nearly 9,000 in total, so you’re going to be able to find exactly what you want.

The best feature of these listings is the ability to immediately join any server just by clicking the button in that column. If you have Ventrilo installed, you’ll be able to launch it and immediately connect to the respective server all through a hyperlink in the browser. This makes the process of picking and choosing the right server a breeze, whereas adding brand new entries for each server you want to test could have you pulling your hair out after a while.

FreeVentriloServer

FreeVentriloServer has a nice little page filled with several servers brought to you by MaxFrag.net. These servers are free and available to the public, and are advertised as “test” servers.

While the list here is nowhere near as extensive as what Game Tracker has to offer, there are servers listed in the US and Europe that are completely dedicated and hosted by one of the most recognized names in Ventrilo server hosting. You can count on these servers to be sturdy and hold a solid uptime. You won’t have to worry about any zany administrators popping on and ruining all of your fun either. As test servers, they aren’t even monitored.

What about you guys? When you’re in need of a quick Ventrilo server for you and your friends, where website(s) do you turn to? Let me know in the comments and lets see if we can come up any alternatives to match the ones listed here.