List View
Follow
Linux

What are the best IRC clients for Linux?

18
Options Considered
0
Recommendations
Last Updated

HexChat vs WeeChat vs IRSSI

 vs Konversation vs Quassel vs Pidgin vs ii vs XChat vs Polari vs The Lounge vs irc.c vs BitchX vs ERC vs Communi vs sic vs ircII vs Scrollz vs rcirc

Specs

License

GPL

Proxy server

Yes

IPv6

Yes

Auto update

Yes

Interface

GUI TUI

Scripting language

Perl Python

CTPC

Yes

SSL

Yes

UTF-8

Yes

Multi-server

Yes

TLS

Yes

CRL

No

SASL

Yes

URI scheme

Yes

OTR

plugin

DCC

CHAT SEND RESUME Passive DCC XDCC

OSCP

No

DANE

No

Platforms

Media

Messaging systems

Message history

License

GPLv3

Proxy server

Yes

IPv6

Auto update

Interface

Scripting language

CTPC

SSL

UTF-8

Multi-server

TLS

CRL

SASL

URI scheme

OTR

DCC

OSCP

DANE

Platforms

Media

Messaging systems

Message history

License

Proxy server

IPv6

Auto update

Interface

Scripting language

CTPC

SSL

UTF-8

Multi-server

TLS

CRL

SASL

URI scheme

OTR

DCC

OSCP

DANE

Platforms

Media

Messaging systems

Message history

License

GPLv2

Proxy server

IPv6

Auto update

Interface

Scripting language

CTPC

SSL

UTF-8

Multi-server

TLS

CRL

SASL

URI scheme

OTR

DCC

OSCP

DANE

Platforms

Media

Messaging systems

Message history

License

GPL

Proxy server

Yes

IPv6

Yes

Auto update

No

Interface

GUI TUI

Scripting language

No

CTPC

Yes

SSL

Yes

UTF-8

Yes

Multi-server

Yes

TLS

Yes

CRL

No

SASL

Yes

URI scheme

?

OTR

No

DCC

No

OSCP

No

DANE

?

Platforms

Media

Messaging systems

Message history

License

Proxy server

IPv6

Auto update

Interface

Scripting language

CTPC

SSL

UTF-8

Multi-server

TLS

CRL

SASL

URI scheme

OTR

DCC

OSCP

DANE

Platforms

Windows, Linux, Mac

Media

Yes

Messaging systems

Many

Message history

Yes

License

Proxy server

IPv6

Auto update

Interface

Scripting language

CTPC

SSL

UTF-8

Multi-server

TLS

CRL

SASL

URI scheme

OTR

DCC

OSCP

DANE

Platforms

Media

Messaging systems

Message history

License

GPL Proprietary

Proxy server

Yes

IPv6

Yes

Auto update

No

Interface

GUI TUI

Scripting language

Perl Python Tcl Ruby C++ ECMAScript Scheme (Guile)

CTPC

Yes

SSL

Yes

UTF-8

Yes

Multi-server

Yes

TLS

?

CRL

?

SASL

script

URI scheme

Yes

OTR

Yes

DCC

CHAT SEND RESUME Passive DCC Server Reverse/Firewall DCC XDCC

OSCP

?

DANE

No

Platforms

Media

Messaging systems

Message history

License

Proxy server

IPv6

Auto update

Interface

Scripting language

CTPC

SSL

UTF-8

Multi-server

TLS

CRL

SASL

URI scheme

OTR

DCC

OSCP

DANE

Platforms

Media

Messaging systems

Message history

License

Proxy server

IPv6

Auto update

Interface

Scripting language

CTPC

SSL

UTF-8

Multi-server

TLS

CRL

SASL

URI scheme

OTR

DCC

OSCP

DANE

Platforms

Media

Messaging systems

Message history

License

Proxy server

IPv6

Auto update

Interface

Scripting language

CTPC

SSL

UTF-8

Multi-server

TLS

CRL

SASL

URI scheme

OTR

DCC

OSCP

DANE

Platforms

Media

Messaging systems

Message history

License

Proxy server

IPv6

Auto update

Interface

Scripting language

CTPC

SSL

UTF-8

Multi-server

TLS

CRL

SASL

URI scheme

OTR

DCC

OSCP

DANE

Platforms

Media

Messaging systems

Message history

License

Proxy server

IPv6

Auto update

Interface

Scripting language

CTPC

SSL

UTF-8

Multi-server

TLS

CRL

SASL

URI scheme

OTR

DCC

OSCP

DANE

Platforms

Media

Messaging systems

Message history

License

Proxy server

IPv6

Auto update

Interface

Scripting language

CTPC

SSL

UTF-8

Multi-server

TLS

CRL

SASL

URI scheme

OTR

DCC

OSCP

DANE

Platforms

Media

Messaging systems

Message history

License

Proxy server

IPv6

Auto update

Interface

Scripting language

CTPC

SSL

UTF-8

Multi-server

TLS

CRL

SASL

URI scheme

OTR

DCC

OSCP

DANE

Platforms

Media

Messaging systems

Message history

License

Proxy server

IPv6

Auto update

Interface

Scripting language

CTPC

SSL

UTF-8

Multi-server

TLS

CRL

SASL

URI scheme

OTR

DCC

OSCP

DANE

Platforms

Media

Messaging systems

Message history

License

Proxy server

IPv6

Auto update

Interface

Scripting language

CTPC

SSL

UTF-8

Multi-server

TLS

CRL

SASL

URI scheme

OTR

DCC

OSCP

DANE

Platforms

Media

Messaging systems

Message history

License

Proxy server

IPv6

Auto update

Interface

Scripting language

CTPC

SSL

UTF-8

Multi-server

TLS

CRL

SASL

URI scheme

OTR

DCC

OSCP

DANE

Platforms

Media

Messaging systems

Message history

Pros + Cons

Pro
 Free and open source

HexChat is available as a free download with source code licensed under GPL v2 and available on GitHub.
Comment

Pro
 Great interface

HexChat's default interface is clear, well-organized and intuitive. Channels can be laid out as both tabs and in a tree structure. All components such as user lists, topics bar or even menu bar can be hidden to provide a clean way to interact. Conversely the interface can be configured to show quick access buttons for changing channel flags, sending files or performing operator actions.
Comment

Pro
 Actively developed

GitHub repository shows active development.
Comment

Pro
 Functionality can be extended with plugins and scripts 

HexChat has a great list of plugins and scripts and is compatible with most XChat plugins. XChats library is incredibly extensive. There is a wide range of both useful and fun plugins. It's possible to add an RSS feed or play a game of chess. Or maybe you want to control an mp3 player via chat while translating everything you type to l33t speek.
Comment

Pro
 Excellent documentation

Hexchat has well-organized, extensive documentation that covers everything from a basic Getting Started guide to enabling Spell Check, connecting to Twitch chat or using Tor.
Comment

Pro
 Works for any level of user 

HexChat is an advanced IRC client that is good for beginners as well as those users who like to get under the hood. It is easy to get up and running, but has all the advanced features that a power user would need.
Comment

Pro
 Highly scriptable

HexChat supports scripting in Perl and Python. Both languages can be used to extend functionality of the software - bots can be written, automation can be added, new dialogs can be created.
Comment

Con
 Bad character support

Writing normal apostrophes and certain characters is not possible without a certain plugin installed. Additionally, it does not render all glyphs like most other programs would.
Comment

Pro
 Available in multiple languages

HexChat has either complete or partial translations in over 50 languages.
Comment

Pro
 Highly customizable look 

While most clients allow changing the theme or style of a window, HexChat gives complete control over what it looks like. It's possible to set a custom image as the background, changing font, or syntax colors.
Comment

Pro
 Smart filtering

Smart filtering lets set a series of rules for IRC channels. For example, it allows instructing the client to show /quit and /join messages only if the user was speaking in the last 20 minutes.
Comment

Pro
 Terminal-based

WeeChat has a command line interface.
Comment

Pro
 Highly customizable and configurable

An many dotfiles are publicly available.
Comment

Pro
 Extensible via plugins and scripts

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

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.
Comment

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 ;)
Comment

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.
Comment

Pro
 Mouse support

Mouse click and gestures are supported on a local terminal as well as remote terminal accessed via ssh regardless of screen/tmux. To enable mouse support use /mouse enable command or press alt+m.
Comment

Pro
 Flexible window splitting

Weechat allows very flexible window splitting behavior to show multiple IRC channels at once. Windows can be split vertically and horizontally.
Comment

Pro
 Intuitive, detail-oriented interface

By default WeeChat has a chat area surrounded by a nicklist on the right, title bar on top, and status and input bars at the bottom. The layout, though, can be completely customized and split vertically or horizontally. It supports 256 colors as long as the terminal supports 256 colors as well as bolded, italicized and underlined text. Even includes little touches as differently colored nicknames for people /away.
Comment

Pro
 Built-in script manager

WeeChat has a built-in tool for searching, downloading, installing and updating scripts and plugins.
Comment

Pro
 Free and open source

WeeChat is a free program licensed under GPL with source code available on GitHub.
Comment

Pro
 Accessible to less expert users out of the box

WeeChat has an easy to use interface and sane defaults, making it a great client for beginner users.
Comment

Pro
 Incremental text search

Text is searched through in real time as search terms are being written.
Comment

Pro
 Huge library of scripts

WeeChat scripts repository has hundreds of scripts including url shorteners, music player integrations and bandwidth monitors.
Comment

Pro
 Actively developed

Comment

Pro
 Active and helpful community support

Weechat community can be found on #weechat @ Freenode. The community, including devs, is helpful in answering any WeeChat related questions.
Comment

Pro
 Offers a choice of remote interfaces

WeeChat has html5, qt, android, emacs and javascript remote interface options.
Comment

Pro
 Can act as a relay for mobile client

It's possible to leave WeeChat running at home/on a server, then connect to it with a smartphone client. This way a choppy mobile internet connection won't disconnect from IRC, and still allow using a touch screen optimized UI.
Comment

Pro
 Terminal-based

Comment

Pro
 Persistent Connection

Comment

Pro
 Perl Scripting

Allows the user to create and use perl scripts to perform actions.
Comment

Pro
 Command line outputs can be sent to a channel or message

/exec -o figlet "Slant.co"
Comment

Pro
 Themes

Allows the modification of IRSSI's look and feel.
Comment

Pro
 Free and open-source

Comment

Con
 Gives little direction upfront

Actually, Irssi.org has it's own GREAT documentation.
Comment

Con
 Cryptic configuration files

Comment

Con
 Can't do vertical splits

Untrue, there are perl scripts available to do split screens with
Comment

Pro
 Has a plugin for encrypted communications

Comment

Con
 No GUI

Actually a plus, lower memory overhead
Comment

Pro
 Regularly Maintained

Konversation is still being updated with new features and bug fixes. Konversation 1.5(released January 15, 2014) has added plenty of major features.
Comment

Con
 Crashes when trying to download search results (on Ubuntu 16.04)

Comment

Pro
 Plenty of useful smaller features.

Koversation is full of features to make IRC simpler and smoother. It comes with tools like a channel bookmarker, the ability to insert special characters easily and the "URL catcher", which gives quick access to any links mentioned in the channel.
Comment

Pro
 Notifications

Konversation has an OSD(On Screen Display) feature that gives you an overlay message anytime your nick is mentioned. This means you won't be interrupted from your work and reduces the need to keep the window open.
Comment

Pro
 Quick Buttons

The Quick Buttons features allows you to set a button to any IRC command that you frequently use. It has several defaults such as whois, and kick but a button can be created for any command you need.
Comment

Pro
 Persistent Connection

Quassel can run as a client for a quassel core (server) which maintains permanent connections with IRC servers. This allows you to log into the quassel core and retrieve backlogs and notifications that you missed while away.
Comment

Pro
 Solid Android app

Quassel Android application is available on the Play Store.
Comment

Pro
 Cross Platform

Comment

Pro
 Client / Server model

Comment

Con
 No native VoIP support

While there are plugins there is no built in support for VoIP in Pidgin which is time consuming to implement instead of being baked in from the jump.
Comment

Pro
 Support for a wide range of additional chat services

Pidgin not only supports IRC, it also supports plenty of other services such as AIM, Google Talk, MSN, ICQ and plenty of others. This way, you can have all of your conversations in the same app and won't have to deal with multiple chat windows being open.
Comment

Pro
 Free and open source

Pidgin and its code is completely free and open source. Pidgin has no ads and no features behind a paywall.
Comment

Pro
 Cross platform

The Pidgin instant messaging client is cross platform, working on Linux, Windows and OSX.
Comment

Pro
 Convenient notification features

Like other quality IRC clients, Pidgin features notifications that the user can set in order to have a variety of things happen when the users is mentioned, such as an audio cue or changing the system tray icon.
Comment

Pro
 Highly customisable with plugins

Pidgin not only has a large plugin library built-in, but also an array of third party plugins for a variety of functions.
Comment

Pro
 Everything is a file

ii is a minimalist FIFO and filesystem-based IRC client. It creates an irc directory tree with server, channel and nick name directories. In every directory a FIFO in file and a normal out file is created. The in file is used to communicate with the servers and the out files contain the server messages. For every channel and every nick name there are related in and out files created. This allows IRC communication from command line and adheres to the Unix philosophy.
Comment

Con
 Development stopped

The latest release of XChat was in 2010. An active fork is HexChat.
Comment

Pro
 Highly customizable look

While most clients allow changing the theme or style of a window, XChat gives complete control over what it looks like. It's possible to set a custom image as the background, changing font, or syntax colors.
Comment

Pro
 Excellent Plugin Library

XChat has a great list of plugins and scripts. Most quality IRC clients support plugins but XChats library is incredibly extensive. There is a wide range of both useful and fun plugins. It's possible to add an RSS feed or play a game of chess. Or maybe you want to control an mp3 player via chat while translating everything you type to l33t speek. XChats Plugin Library is truly extensive.
Comment

Pro
 Works for any level of user

XChat is an advanced IRC client that is good for beginners as well as those users who like to get under the hood. It is easy to get up and running, but has all the advanced features that a power user would need.
Comment

Pro
 Great interface 

XChat's default interface is clear, well-organized and intuitive. Channels can be laid out as both tabs and in a tree structure. All components such as user lists, topics bar or even menu bar can be hidden to provide a clean way to interact. Conversely the interface can be configured to show quick access buttons for changing channel flags, sending files or performing operator actions.
Comment

Pro
 Great UI

The CSD-based UI is great to look at. No screen space goes entirely wasted and is presented neatly.
Comment

Pro
 Easy to use

Polari is very straight forward to use.
Comment

Con
 Some advanced features are lacking

Polari's users will find some advanced features lacking, such as Direct Client-to-Client (DCC).
Comment

Pro
 GNOME-Integration

Polari integrates nice with GNOME, on a visual and technical level. It uses GNOME online accounts and runs empathy in the background.
Comment

Con
 May seem too simple

Unlike Hexchat or other alternatives, it does not expose much of its functionality though some of it might really be present.
Comment

Pro
 Free

Comment

Pro
 Hosted on the web

Always up.
Comment

Pro
 Highly maintained

Comment

Pro
 Single server

Each instance of the client can only connect to one server and then you can join multiple channels with the join command. Example: "irc -s irc.freenode.net", then "j #lua" and "j #chicken"
Comment

Pro
 Open-source

The source code (a single C file) is under public domain.
Comment

Pro
 Infinite scrollback

You can move up and down the history with the "Page Up" and "Page Down" keys.
Comment

Pro
 Automatic reconnection

It automatically connects you back if you happen to get disconnected.
Comment

Con
 Documentation

Its website and README do not give enough information about shortcuts and commands. You have to look those things up in the source file.
Comment

Pro
 Elegant and minimalist interface

Communi user interface for desktop and mobile is minimal, which helps you focus on the task at hand instead of being distracted by extra UI elements.
Comment

Pro
 Good ZNC integration

The author is involved in ZNC development, so the latest ZNC goodies are guaranteed to be well supported (http://communi.github.io/znc/). With help of the documented ZNC modules, Communi retains its state well across sessions. No repetitive buffer playback on reconnect, notifications and banners for newly received messages only, queries stay open until closed etc.
Comment

Pro
 UI runs on multiple platforms

While Communi itself is a IRC framework, the project offers several UI implementations such as desktop, SailfishOS, Meego and Symbian.
Comment

Pro
 Quassel protocol implementation

Communi is integrated with Quassel.
Comment

Pro
 Event merging

Consequent events (joins, parts, quits etc.) are merged to reduce noise and to keep focus on the discussion.
Comment

Con
 No DCC

Communi does not support DCC (for a reason)
Comment

Con
 No scripting

Communi has no support for scripts
Comment