When comparing Quassel vs Kiwi IRC, the Slant community recommends Quassel for most people. In the question“What are the best IRC clients for Windows?” Quassel is ranked 7th while Kiwi IRC is ranked 17th. The most important reason people chose Quassel is:
Quassal is available for free with source code licensed under GPL and available [here](http://bugs.quassel-irc.org/projects/quassel-irc/repository).
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Free and open source
Quassal is available for free with source code licensed under GPL and available here.
Pro Distributed
It's possible for a front-end client or multiple front-end clients to connect to a single core client. This allows setting up an always on-line core that can be accessed from anywhere.
Pro Easy installation on Ubuntu due to the existence of PPA's
Right now Quassel has a PPA maintainer, which allows you to install the stable version or daily versions.
Support for PostgreSQL as database backend and easy to configure for people that know a bit about systems.
Pro Beautiful interface
Kiwi's default interface is aesthetically modern, while keeping a classic two-column layout with chat window on the left and nicklist on the right. Unlike many other interfaces, a considerable amount of effort has been spent on making it easy on the eyes.
The interface offers common customization options including time format changes, choice of system messages and choice of laying out channels in a tabbed or list manner.
Pro Free and open source
Kiwi IRC web client is available for free licensed under GPL with source available on GitHub.
Pro Embeddable
Code can be generated that allows embedding the IRC client within a website.
Pro Available in multiple languages
Kiwi's front-end is available in more than 20 languages including Polish, Romanian and Russian.
Cons
Con Potential memory bloat in monolithic client if left running for a period of time
(I don't know if this problem has been fixed in recent years, but I have doubts)
Con No DCC support
DCC or Direct Client-to-Client protocol allows for private communications between users (without the traffic being routed through servers). Neither chat nor file transfers are supported.
Con Notifications don't time out
Notifications pop-ups have to be closed manually each time, they don't disappear on their own after a set amount of time.