When comparing HydraIRC vs Smuxi, the Slant community recommends HydraIRC for most people. In the question“What are the best IRC clients for Windows?” HydraIRC is ranked 13th while Smuxi is ranked 20th. The most important reason people chose HydraIRC is:
Source code available [here](http://svn.hydrairc.com/hydrairc/).
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Free and open source
Source code available here.
Pro Functionality can be extended via plugins
Pro Good identity manager
Pro Feature rich
Pro Twitter integration
It's possible to check and interact with Twitter's timeline, replies and direct messages from the Smuxi client.
Pro Distributed
Smuxi offers an option to keep idling in a channel even when all front-end clients are closed. It's possible for a front-end client or multiple front-end clients to connect to a single server. This allows setting up an always on-line server that can be accessed from anywhere.
Pro Plugins and scripts can be written in any language
Pro Highly customizable interface
Pro Facebook chat, gTalk and Jabber integration
Smuxi has XMPP protocol support that allows integrating with Facebook chat, gTalk and Jabber.
Pro Theming support
Pro Caret mode
Caret mode allows navigating through messages (the output buffer) via keyboard.
Cons
Con Development stopped
Latest version of HydraIRC was released in 2008.
Con No scripting support
Con Poor script and plugin library
Smuxi's script and plugin library contains less than 10 entries.