If you're not a HexChat fan, there are lots of other options in this arena: Konversation, Quassel IRC, and KVIrc are all great choices, and there are many others.

HexChat is released under the GPL version 2, and its source code is available on GitHub. And unlike the original XChat, HexChat is open source across every platform it is available on (XChat was only available commercially for Windows systems, but was free for Linux users). HexChat hosts a themeable interface, the ability to write custom scripts in Python or Perl, and a number of other features available through both native support and a variety of addons. Meet HexChat, my personal favorite desktop IRC client. HexChat might be called the logical successor to XChat, bringing active development to what would otherwise be a dormant project. XChat development effectively halted after its last release in 2010, and a new contender has picked up the code base, created a fork, and run with it.

It's widely distributed, and it strikes a good balance between being easy to use while still chocked full of features. Years ago, XChat would have definitely been one of my top picks. I stumbled upon a great article a few weeks ago from Joe Brockmeier which looked at the top IRC clients for Linux-Pidgin, Konversation, XChat, Chatzilla, and Irssi-but with that article now over five years old, I thought it was worth revisiting these tools and asking where they are today, and if there are any new contenders that should join the list. Given how much time I spend there, I thought it's about time to take a look at what my options are and see if there’s a client that can better meet my needs. While IRC isn't perfect, and I don’t love some of its quirks, it's here to stay for at least the foreseeable future as its low barrier to entry and wide selection of open source clients make IRC, and particularly Freenode, the go-to place for open source projects to collaborate.īut it's been awhile since I’ve evaluated what tools I use to connect to IRC. Like a lot of people involved in the open source movement, though I use a variety of different tools for real time communications, I just can't seem to get away from IRC.

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