The following tables compare general and technical information between a number of IRC client programs. Please see the individual products articles for further information. This article is not all-inclusive or necessarily up-to-date.

General

Basic general information about the clients: creator/company, license/price etc. Clients listed on a light purple background are no longer in active development.

• Originally based on AuroreIRC by Omar Kilani which was based on OpenIRC by Damian Hodgkiss

• ncurses user interface

• Can be installed as part of a web browser

• Distributed as a Universal Binary

• Can be used as a Java applet or a standalone Java application

• Originally sIRC (July 2000) and later VClient (July 2001 August 2001)

• Supports the Ribbon interface under Windows Vista and Windows 7

• Mobile Internet Device compatible via WPF

• Web browser component

• Can be run as a Java applet, Java Web Start, or standalone application

• Separate client and daemon

• Not complete, proof of concept

• In development

Release history

A brief overview of the release history.

Operating system support

The operating systems on which the clients can run natively (without emulation).

• Requires CygwinSee "INSTALL" included with BitchX
  • Requires EMX
  • Requires Mac OS X v10.4 or later
    • In development
      • Requires Internet Explorer 5.0 or later for Windows 95, 98, 98SE, ME, NT4, and 2000
        • Requires comctl32.dll version 5.80 or later for Windows 98 and NT 4.0
          • Requires Service Pack 6 and Internet Explorer 4.0 or later for Windows NT 4.0
          • Requires RubyCocoa 1.0.0 or later
          • Requires Mac OS X v10.4.3 or later
          • Requires Windows XP Service Pack 2 or later
          • Does not support Windows 95 or Windows 98
          Unix and Unix-like operating systems:
          
          Unix (BSD): 386BSD, BSD/OS, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, SunOS, ULTRIX
          Unix (System V): AIX, A/UX, HP-UX, IRIX, SCO UNIX, Solaris, UnixWare
          Unix-like: Linux, NeXTSTEP, OpenVMS, OSF/1, QNX, Tru64 UNIX
          • BitchX is known to work on BSDI 2.0, 2.1, 3.1, 4.0; FreeBSD 2.x, 3.x, 4.0; NetBSD 3.x, 4.x; SunOS 4.1.4; Ultrix; AIX; HP-UX 9.x, 10.x; IRIX 5.x, 6.x; Solaris 5.x and later; Linux; OSF/1 (DEC Alpha); QNX
          • WeeChat tested on FreeBSD 4.11, 5.4, 6.0; NetBSD 2.0, 2.1; OpenBSD 3.6, 3.7, 3.8; Solaris 5.10; QNX 6.3
          • In development
          • XChat tested on HP-UX 10.20 and 11

            Protocol support

            What IRC related protocols and standards are supported by each client.
            
            • Planned for a later version
            • Marked as completed, but not included yet
            • Supported via a plugin
            • Can not send files, can only receive files up to 2MB
            • DCC is not always successful at this stage
            • Wrapper library available
            • Requires the OpenSSL library
            • Partial OpenSSL support
            • Not complete, proof of concept

            Direct Client-to-Client (DCC) support

            • Planned for a later version
            • Supports the DCC Resume protocol
            • Supported via a script
            • Not complete, proof of concept
            • Marked as completed, but not included yet
            • Supported via scripts and plugins

            Features

            Information on what features each of the clients support.
            
            • When compiled with ncursesw (ncurses with wide-character support)
            • Automatically updates via the Sparkle framework
            • Planned for a later version
            • Supported as of version 20050921
            • Uses the Windows Active Scripting technology and supports any scripting language with the appropriate interface
            • Any language which supports DCOP may be used for Konversation scripting. Virtually any language can be made to support Konversation scripting by executing the command line "dcop" program.
            • Notification only, automatic updates will be integrated in the next Version Opera 10
            • Not complete, proof of concept
            • Supported via a plugin

            See also

            • Comparison of mobile IRC clients
            • Comparison of instant messaging clients
            • Comparison of instant messaging protocols
            • Comparison of LAN messengers