When comparing Empathy vs BitlBee, the Slant community recommends BitlBee for most people. In the question“What are the best instant messaging clients for Linux?” BitlBee is ranked 8th while Empathy is ranked 15th. The most important reason people chose BitlBee is:
BitlBee can be used without installing via community-maintained public servers.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Public servers
BitlBee can be used without installing via community-maintained public servers.
Pro Supports multiple protocols and networks
BitlBee supports: XMPP/Jabber, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, AIM, ICQ, and Twitter.
Pro Free and open source
BitlBee is available for free and licensed under GPLv2 with source code available on GitHub.
Cons
Con Store the password in clear text
./.local/share/telepathy/mission-control/accounts.cfg has your param-password=YourPaswordInClearText !
Con Technical
While the help command is informative and includes examples, settting BitlBee up requires a considerable amount of technical knowledge.