IRCCloud vs Pidgin

IRCCloud has the ability to embed pictures, youtube videos, vines, etc straight within the chat window.

IRCCloud offers an option to keep idling in a channel even when the user is not connected. This way no conversations or mentions will be missed while away.

Files can be shared simply by dragging and dropping them into a channel. They will be hosted on IRCCloud's servers and linked.

IRCCloud has a simple two-pane interface with a chat window on the left and server and channel lists on the right. It includes colorized nicknames to easier tell users apart and allows customizing details such as clock format, usermode symbols and alerts.

IRCCloud will suggest putting long snippets of text on pastebin and link that instead of flooding the channel.

While IRCCloud is generally a subscription service, a limited free tier is available. It's limited to 2 external IRC networks besides irc.irccloud.com, accounts get disconnected after 2h while no frontend is used (does not apply for the first 7 days) and 100MB file sharing limit as well as it lacks a number of team and enterprise oriented features.

Never lose logs again, IRCCloud keeps them backed up and can email a zip of them to you on request.

All other irc clients are only connected to the network as long as you are online. IRCCloud provides a bouncer by default, i.e. an irc proxy that maintains your presence and logs all chat. Said BNC remains online for 3 hours by default, papering over connectivity losses, or for a small fee of 4€ per month, you can remain online forever (good for travels and such).

Available on android and apple stores. It's just as good as the desktop client, comparable with discord though not as fully featured, being IRC.

There is a primitive, but consistently updated web wrapper that can act as a desktop client available on github. They don't exactly publicize it, but it is being actively developed all the same. It will likely evolve into a full-featured dedicated desktop client in time.

Offers bounties for reporting security bugs through HackerOne.

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.

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

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

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.

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