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When comparing IRC vs Mattermost, the Slant community recommends Mattermost for most people. In the question“What is the best team chat software?” Mattermost is ranked 6th while IRC is ranked 12th. The most important reason people chose Mattermost is:
You don't need to rely on someone else's servers, you can host Mattermost on your own server.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Open protocol
The IRC protocol is public and open, it is mature and stable, and has been implemented in numerous projects. This means that it can be used freely, for both open-source and commercial projects.
Pro Versatile
IRC offers choice. Choice in clients (mobile, desktop, web), in scripts those clients run, in servers and features those servers have. You can even set up your own server.
Pro Less distracting
Compared to other common solutions, IRC can be ignored when you are occupied doing something else. Most clients don't pester you with sounds or distracting visuals.
Pro Mentions
Every notable IRC client supports mentions - notifying you when your name is mentioned in the chat. The mentions in IRC are comparably better than Discord. Mentions used in Discord are easily abused; this doesn't happen in IRC. If someone's talking about you, you get a notification in IRC. This doesn't happen in something like Discord.
Pro Hundreds of avaliable clients
IRC has been around since 1988, so there is a ton of existing software to work with it. Everything from clients, to chat bots, to bouncers is already built.
Pro IRC networks are not centralized
You can choose your favorite server for an IRC network.
Pro No account necessary
No need to sign up for access, confirm your e-mail address. Just choose a nickname and you're done.
Pro User-friendly
IRC is user friendly if you use something like hexchat or kiwi webchat.
Pro DCC
Direct Client-to-Client allows users to share files in a similar way to torrenting.
Pro Great historic importance
Twitter hashtags came from IRC channel names.
Pro Upcoming IRCv3 will provide missing features
Pro Can be self-hosted
You don't need to rely on someone else's servers, you can host Mattermost on your own server.
Pro One-line Docker install
With Docker set up, you can install Mattermost with the following command:
docker run --name mattermost-dev -d --publish 8065:80 mattermost/platform
For other cases, installation instructions can be found here.
Pro Similar to Slack
Almost all features of Slack are available in Mattermost.
Pro Free - OpenSource
You can download and use it as free for self-hosted server.
Pro Mobile apps for android and iOS
Pro You can change theme
Pro Desktop app for MacOS, Linux and Windows
Pro Browser notifications
Pro Mark-Down support
Yes, it supports markdown.
Cons
Con Complex and not user friendly
Con Assumes some level of prior knowledge
The features are not discoverable the way they are in other apps and services.
Con You have to "idle" to see what's going on
You will see a blank chat screen at first because there is no recent history kept on servers.
Con Can be addictive
Con Poor multimedia support
Sending anything besides text is not easy or intuitive and depends on the client.
Con Advanced functionality is client-dependant
Con No easy End-to-End Encryption setup
Con Features not available out of the box
Difficult to setup the many features it offers. The easy docker installation is for the application only, not it's feature sets. Requires a license for full-set of features.
Con Centralized
Con Poorly made iOS app
Built natively using React it suffers from unresponsiveness, input lag, and sometimes broken services. Coupled with a bad user experience.
Con Poorly made Android app
The Android application is just a badly wrapped web-view which does not perform well and has no form of offline caching whatsoever.
Con Self-Hosted
This doesn't work for every type of company. Mainly great for those concerned with privacy, security, compliance and control of your data/information.
