What are the best XMPP clients for Windows?

Question

9

Options
Considered

154

User
Recs.

Apr 14, 2019

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

The Best 1 of 6 OptionsWhy?

Best XMPP clients for Windows	Price	Platforms	Media
92 Miranda	-	-	-
86 Pidgin	-	Windows, Linux, Mac, Android	Video chat, Video, Image, Recording, Gif, Url links, Additional.
-- Mozilla Thunderbird	Free	Windows, macOS, Linux	-
-- Gajim	-	-	-
-- Movim	-	-	-

See Full List

5 Other Options Considered

Pidgin

Top 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. See More

Top Con

Can't be used with self-signed server certificates

Many places have their own jabber servers, and many self-sign their certs. Pidgin is hard-coded to refuse these. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, Android

Media:Video chat, Video, Image, Recording, Gif, Url links, Additional.

Message history:Optional, can

Emoticons:Yes, includes various 3rd party versions including android.

See All Specs

Top Pro

Very lightweight

Pidgin is very lightweight both in its minimalistic UI as well as RAM/CPU usage, especially when compared to competition like trillian. See More

Top Con

Slow development

Slow development, especially for Windows. Hard to find news updates on current work/progress. See More

Top Pro

Convenient notification features

Like other quality messaging 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Supports HiDPI display

Pidgin has built in support for HiDPI displays with no formatting issues to be seen. See More

Top Con

Support for enlarged fonts for visually impaired is less than perfect

Typing messages with enlarged fonts sometimes makes that part of the UI glitch. It will change size (grow and shrink) as you type, making it hard to follow. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Easy to setup

Pidgin is very user friendly and easy to use. See More

See All

Mozilla Thunderbird

Top Pro

Free

Dario Volarić's Experience

So far the best looking and most user friendly mail and XMPP chat client for Windows. See More

Specs

Platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux

Top Pro

Lightning Calendar and Address Book integration

Top Pro

Available on Linux, OS X and Windows

Top Pro

Large assortment of plugins available

Mozilla Thunderbird offers a huge amount of extensions to expand the usability and options of the client. See More

Top Pro

Very reliable

Version after version, Mozilla Thunderbird works as expected. See More

Top Pro

Chat support

Supports Google Talk, IRC, Twitter and XMPP protocols See More

Top Pro

Send large files easy

Install pCloud plugin for Thunderbird and your files (upto 20 GB free storage included) will be received as download links See More

Top Pro

Tabs for navigation

Top Pro

Consistent and involving a moderate learning curve

The app design of Mozilla Thunderbird has not changed significantly since its beginning, making its learning curve almost non-existent. See More

Top Pro

Good filtering system

Mozilla Thunderbird offers a flexible filtering system with the ability to set flags and read/unread, as well as sort/assign to new mail directories. There are also numerous plugins available to assist in the filtering. See More

Top Pro

Free (as in freedom and beer)

See All

Gajim

Top Pro

OMEMO encryption available as a plug-in

Top Con

OMEMO not natively supported

Requires plug-in. See More

CuriousMinthe's Experience

Open Source, Cross platform, OMEMO encryption. For me, the best, by far. See More

Top Con

Chat logs are in SQLite DB.

Plaintext (or XML/markup) logs are not available. See More

ImaginativeGenann's Experience

This comparison is missing a few things like MAM, carbons and other stuff important for encrypted cross-device usage. I tried Gajim, Pidgin and Dino for a few month and since version 1.0 Gajim ist the clear lead (they are all three Free & Open Source). See More

Top Con

Chat logging enabled by default

Problematic for encrypted chats. See More

See All

AstraChat

Top Con

Desktop version is not free/downloadable

Can't even download the desktop client to test without contacting their sales department. See More

Top Pro

Supports a lot of protocols

RFC-3920:Core RFC-3921:Instant Messaging and Presence XEP-0012 Last Activity XEP-0016 Privact lists XEP-0054 VCARD-temp XEP-0085 Chat State Notifications XEP-0153 vCard-Based Avatars XEP-0172 User Nickname XEP-0184 Message delivery receipts XEP-0191 Blocking commands XEP-0198 Stream Management XEP-0199 XMPP Ping XEP-0176: Jingle ICE-UDP XEP-0136: Message Archiving XEP-0045: Multi-User Chat See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows , Linux , Mac , Android , iOS

Media:Yes

Message history:Yes

Emoticons:Yes, including Sticker from 3rd party such as Gboard

See All Specs

Top Pro

Network efficient

AstraChat is tuned to make very efficient use of the network connection and processor so you can be confident that it will use very little of your battery or data allowance. See More

Top Pro

Secure

Messages are received from clients using secured (TLS or SSL) XMPP (jabber) protocol. See More

Top Pro

Direct connect

See All

Request recommendations from the community

I Recommend...

Help millions of people make better decisions.

Each month, over 2.8 million people use Slant to find the best products and share their knowledge. Pick the tags you’re passionate about to get a personalized feed and begin contributing your knowledge.

score 35 · Accepted Answer

Miranda

Top Pro

Insanely customisable

You can see all the plugins available for Miranda here. See More

Top Con

Doesn't support XMPP with OMEMO (yet)

Top Pro

Requires no installation and is very lightweight

Very light on system resources and extremely fast, Miranda IM requires no installation and can be made to fit on a single floppy disk or USB drive. See More

The Best 1 of 6 OptionsWhy?

My Recommendation for Miranda

My Recommendation for Miranda

Insanely customisable

Doesn't support XMPP with OMEMO (yet)

Requires no installation and is very lightweight

5 Other Options Considered

My Recommendation for Pidgin

My Recommendation for Pidgin

Free and Open Source

Can't be used with self-signed server certificates

Very lightweight

Slow development

Convenient notification features

No native VoIP support

Supports HiDPI display

Support for enlarged fonts for visually impaired is less than perfect

Highly customisable with plugins

Support for a wide range of additional chat services

Easy to setup

My Recommendation for Mozilla Thunderbird

My Recommendation for Mozilla Thunderbird

Free

Lightning Calendar and Address Book integration

Available on Linux, OS X and Windows

Large assortment of plugins available

Very reliable

Chat support

Send large files easy

Tabs for navigation

Consistent and involving a moderate learning curve

Good filtering system

Free (as in freedom and beer)

My Recommendation for Gajim

My Recommendation for Gajim

OMEMO encryption available as a plug-in

OMEMO not natively supported

Chat logs are in SQLite DB.

Chat logging enabled by default

My Recommendation for Movim

My Recommendation for Movim

Simple and social

No Windows support

Works on Linux

Tells you if messages have been read

Synchronizes your chat across all supported devices

My Recommendation for AstraChat

My Recommendation for AstraChat

Desktop version is not free/downloadable

Supports a lot of protocols

Network efficient

Secure

Direct connect

Don't see your favorite option? Add it.

My Recommendation for Mastodon

My Recommendation for Mastodon

My Recommendation for Exodus

My Recommendation for Exodus

My Recommendation for Psi

My Recommendation for Psi

One sec!