When comparing Pidgin vs irc.c, the Slant community recommends Pidgin for most people. In the question“What are the best IRC clients for UNIX-like systems?” Pidgin is ranked 6th while irc.c is ranked 16th. The most important reason people chose Pidgin is:
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.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
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.
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.
Pro Cross platform
The Pidgin instant messaging client is cross platform, working on Linux, Windows and OSX.
Pro Convenient notification features
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.
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.
Pro Single server
Each instance of the client can only connect to one server and then you can join multiple channels with the join command.
Example: "irc -s irc.freenode.net", then "j #lua" and "j #chicken"
Pro Open-source
The source code (a single C file) is under public domain.
Pro Infinite scrollback
You can move up and down the history with the "Page Up" and "Page Down" keys.
Pro Automatic reconnection
It automatically connects you back if you happen to get disconnected.
Cons
Con Miserable IRC font controls (as of 2.13.0.17)
Does its best to avoid putting sensible default font controls in any place where you can get to it. And when it does grudgingly change it, based on system preferences (not local preferences), it does so in an inconsistent and unpredictable fashion.
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.
Con Documentation
Its website and README do not give enough information about shortcuts and commands. You have to look those things up in the source file.