When comparing Smuxi vs XChat, the Slant community recommends XChat for most people. In the question“What are the best IRC clients for Windows?” XChat is ranked 10th while Smuxi is ranked 20th. The most important reason people chose XChat is:
While most clients allow changing the theme or style of a window, XChat gives complete control over what it looks like. It's possible to set a custom image as the background, changing font, or syntax colors.
Specs
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Pros
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.
Pro Highly customizable look
While most clients allow changing the theme or style of a window, XChat gives complete control over what it looks like. It's possible to set a custom image as the background, changing font, or syntax colors.
Pro Works for any level of user
XChat is an advanced IRC client that is good for beginners as well as those users who like to get under the hood. It is easy to get up and running, but has all the advanced features that a power user would need.
Pro Excellent Plugin Library
XChat has a great list of plugins and scripts. Most quality IRC clients support plugins but XChats library is incredibly extensive. There is a wide range of both useful and fun plugins. It's possible to add an RSS feed or play a game of chess. Or maybe you want to control an mp3 player via chat while translating everything you type to l33t speek. XChats Plugin Library is truly extensive.
Pro Great interface
XChat's default interface is clear, well-organized and intuitive. Channels can be laid out as both tabs and in a tree structure. All components such as user lists, topics bar or even menu bar can be hidden to provide a clean way to interact. Conversely the interface can be configured to show quick access buttons for changing channel flags, sending files or performing operator actions.
Cons
Con Poor script and plugin library
Smuxi's script and plugin library contains less than 10 entries.
Con Development stopped
The latest release of XChat was in 2010. An active fork is HexChat.