What are the best IRC clients for Mac?

Question

12

Options
Considered

509

User
Recs.

Jan 13, 2022

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

The Best 2 of 9 OptionsWhy?

Best IRC clients for Mac	Price	License	Proxy server
94 LimeChat	Free	-	-
94 Textual	$7.99	-	-
-- WeeChat	Free	GPLv3	Yes
-- Irssi	Free	-	-
59 Linkinus 2	$32.00	-	-

See Full List

Textual

Top Pro

Native to Mac

Textual was developed just for Mac, so there's no need to worry about compatibility issues. It can be downloaded straight from the App Store and takes full advantage of Macs native features such as the Notification Center. See More

Top Con

Requires payment (unless compiled from source)

Textual is a paid product, but can be used for free if you compile it yourself. See More

Ray's Experience

Textual is the only GUI IRC client I've used on macOS that has a customizable modern-looking UI. It's feature-complete with really straightforward configuration, and there's also full theming support. It's an amazing piece of open source software, and the best part is you can use it for free if you build it yourself (see: https://github.com/Codeux-Software/Textual#building-textual). See More

Top Pro

Designed with simplicity in mind

Textual was built to be simple and easy to use. It is very clean and has features for both IRC newbies and power-users. See More

Top Con

Unreliable when having network issues

If you are using VPNs, your connectivity with the IRC servers may drop and you will find it almost useless. It is able to reconnect, but is not able to rejoin the channels when it reconnects. See More

FascinatingOlodumare's Experience

The best IRC client i've found so far (and I've tried a lot) See More

Top Pro

Full-featured

Textual provides a wide range of features for any level of IRC user. It has basic options such as: Native Fullscreen support Native Notification Center support Wide range of keyboard shortcuts And plenty of other basic features you would expect from a quality IRC client. It also has a plethora of advanced features for those looking to get under the hood: SOCK4 and SOCK5 support Full, native support for IPv6 users. Direct Client-to-Client (DCC) file transfer support And many other customization options, such as theming. See More

LuckyCoeus's Experience

Lost connection every 10 minutes in idle See More

Top Pro

Regularly maintained and updated

The team at textual is always working on updating and getting rid of bugs in Textual which means its always improving. See More

Top Pro

Can be used for free if you build it yourself

Textual is open source and includes instructions for building it. You can set the TEXTUAL_BUILT_WITH_LICENSE_MANAGER flag to 0 to skip trial/license popups. See More

Top Pro

Open source

Source code is available here. See More

Top Pro

Proxy support

Textual can proxy your connection to IRC servers through SOCKS4 / SOCKS5 on a per-server basis. See More

Top Pro

Full, native support for IPv6

Top Pro

ZNC integration

Support for ZNC out of the box, including history. See More

See All

7 Other Options Considered

WeeChat

Top Con

Keyboard shortcuts not working out of the box

On MacOS many of the keyboard shortcuts for WeeChat do not work out of the box, because they are in use by MacOS. This requires remapping keys. See More

Top Pro

Supports SASL and SSL

Specs

License:GPLv3

Proxy server:Yes

Top Con

No official GUI option

While there are some unofficial remote graphical interfaces available for WeeChat, it is intended to be used as a terminal client. As such it might be challenging to use to those accustomed to graphical interfaces. See More

Top Pro

Open-source

All the source code is available on github. See More

Top Con

Scripting API allows poorly written scripts to be used as attack vectors

Plugin documentation includes the following warning: In many functions, for speed reasons, WeeChat does not check if your pointer is correct or not. It’s your job to check you’re giving a valid pointer, otherwise you may see a nice crash report ;) See More

Top Pro

Terminal-based

WeeChat has a command line interface. See More

Top Pro

Fully keyboard driven

Weechat can be fully driven by keyboard shortcuts. Navigating between buffers, switching between windows and changing text styling can all be achieved with keyboard shortcuts. See More

Top Pro

Extensible via plugins and scripts

Supports scripting in C, Python, Perl, Ruby, Lua, Tcl, Scheme and Javascript. See More

Top Pro

Highly customizable and configurable

An many dotfiles are publicly available. See More

Top Pro

Has scripting plugins

Has plugins for Perl, Python and other languages to write your scripts in. See More

Top Pro

Incredibly extendable

Has an inbuilt user scripting repository. See More

Top Pro

Very lightweight

See All

Linkinus 2

Top Pro

Major improvements over first version

With the new version release, Linkinus 2 is up to 10 times faster. It also has new core features such as auto reconnect, proxy support and much more. See More

Top Con

Abandonware

Top Pro

Searchable logs

Linkinus 2 lets you search chat logs by keyword within the app. You can also enable or disable logging on a per-channel basis. See More

Top Con

More expensive than most IRC clients

At $7.99 USD on the App Store, Linkinus 2 is more expensive than most IRC clients. While the extensive features may justify the price for some, basic users probably do not need to pay for a commercial client. See More

Top Pro

An extensive feature set

For those looking for a feature packed client, Linkinus 2 is for you. The $8 USD price point is almost justifiable by the feature list. It frovides features not seen in other IRC clients such as embedded media(Youtube, Vimeo, etc.) and can automatically expand shortened URLs. See More

Top Con

No Notification Center support.

Linkinus 2 does not support OSX's Notification Center meaning you'll have to keep an eye on the window as you won't be getting alerts straight to your desktop. See More

See All

KVIrc

Smuxi

Top Con

Runs on mono

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score 132 · Accepted Answer

LimeChat

Top Pro

Free and Open Source

Top Con

Console based

If you're not familiar with a text based IRC client already, it is definitely not user friendly for learning. See More

MotivatedRongomai's Experience

Probably fine for an experienced user, but I typo'd the host name, so it wouldn't connect. No obvious way to edit config or add a second host (despite a quick google) and even after uninstalling + reinstalling it still "helpfully" remembered the incorrect information. See More

Top Pro

Console-like interface

LimeChat has a nostalgic console feel that is still very functional. It features multiple themes including a three column layout. See More

Top Con

No way to search chat logs within LimeChat

Chat logs are not viewable within the app. You must find the file in the directory and open it with a text editor. See More

GregariousFerentina's Experience

Amazing client See More

Top Pro

Native support for the Notification Center

FlexibleKulla's Experience

Easy to setup & use. Stays connected. Like the console design. See More

Top Pro

Includes many useful features

LimeChat includes many features that any IRC user would need such as: The ability to Connect to multiple servers and rooms Auto join rooms on startup File Sending Native Notification Center support SSL authorization See More

FunCeres's Experience

Github source outdated See More

Top Pro

Full range of keyboard shortcuts

Limechat has a fully featured shortcut list that makes navigating the program quick and easy. See More

ElatedAlLat's Experience

Really poor UX with this. Unable to copy contents of chat windows in any reasonable manner. Pasting text brings up a dialog rather than going into input box to be edited first. Terrible client See More

Top Pro

Fast and lightweight

See All

The Best 2 of 9 OptionsWhy?

My Recommendation for LimeChat

My Recommendation for LimeChat

Free and Open Source

Console based

Console-like interface

No way to search chat logs within LimeChat

Native support for the Notification Center

Includes many useful features

Full range of keyboard shortcuts

Fast and lightweight

My Recommendation for Textual

My Recommendation for Textual

Native to Mac

Requires payment (unless compiled from source)

Designed with simplicity in mind

Unreliable when having network issues

Full-featured

Regularly maintained and updated

Can be used for free if you build it yourself

Open source

Proxy support

Full, native support for IPv6

ZNC integration

7 Other Options Considered

My Recommendation for WeeChat

My Recommendation for WeeChat

Keyboard shortcuts not working out of the box

Supports SASL and SSL

No official GUI option

Open-source

Scripting API allows poorly written scripts to be used as attack vectors

Terminal-based

Fully keyboard driven

Extensible via plugins and scripts

Highly customizable and configurable

Has scripting plugins

Incredibly extendable

Very lightweight

My Recommendation for Irssi

My Recommendation for Irssi

Free and open-source

Not the easiest to get going

Themes

Has a plugin for encrypted communications

Terminal-based

Perl Scripting

Persistent connection

Send command line outputs to a channel or message.

My Recommendation for Linkinus 2

My Recommendation for Linkinus 2

Major improvements over first version

Abandonware

Searchable logs

More expensive than most IRC clients

An extensive feature set

No Notification Center support.

My Recommendation for XChat Azure

My Recommendation for XChat Azure

Does not remember preferences, crashes frequently

My Recommendation for Quassel

My Recommendation for Quassel

Distributed

My Recommendation for KVIrc

My Recommendation for KVIrc

My Recommendation for Smuxi

My Recommendation for Smuxi

Runs on mono

Don't see your favorite option? Add it.

My Recommendation for Colloquy

My Recommendation for Colloquy

My Recommendation for Adium

My Recommendation for Adium

My Recommendation for mIRC

My Recommendation for mIRC

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