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CommunicationsWindowsXMPPInstant MessagingChatMessaging ProtocolsMessaging Clients

What are the best XMPP clients for Windows?

9

Options
Considered

196

User
Recs.

Oct 4, 2019

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

The Best 1 of 6 OptionsWhy?

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

5 Other Options Considered

Pidgin

Add Video or Image

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, Android

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

Message history:Optional, can

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

Top Pro

Easy to setup

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

Top Con

Slow development

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

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

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

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

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

Supports HiDPI display

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

Top Con

suck in c&p

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

Mozilla Thunderbird

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Top Pro

Chat support

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

ConsiderateGaxiSonnim's Experience

XMPP extension is no longer available on latest versions of Mozilla Thunderbird See More

Specs

Platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux

Exchange Support:Yes

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

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

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)

Gajim

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Top Pro

OMEMO encryption available as a plug-in

Top Con

Chat logs are in SQLite DB.

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

CuriousMinthe's Experience

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

Top Con

OMEMO not natively supported

Requires plug-in. 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

AstraChat

Add Video or Image

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 Con

Desktop version is not free/downloadable

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

Specs

Platforms:Windows , Linux , Mac , Android , iOS

Message history:Yes

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

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

Top Pro

Secure

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

Top Pro

Direct connect

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