Free IRC clients

graphical multi-protocol instant messaging client

XChat (originally styled X-Chat) is an Internet Relay Chat client. It has a tabbed document interface or tree interface, support for multiple servers, and numerous configuration options.

Kopete was a multi-protocol, free software instant messaging client released as part of the KDE Software Compilation. Although it can run in numerous environments, it was designed for and integrates with the KDE Plasma Workspaces. Kopete was started because ICQ blocked Licq from their network in 2001. According to the original author, Duncan Mac-Vicar Prett, the name comes from the Chilean Spanish word copete, meaning "a drink with your friends". Kopete has been nominated for multiple awards. The designated successor is KDE Telepathy from the KDE RTCC Initiative.

Irssi ( ) is an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client program for Linux, FreeBSD, macOS and Microsoft Windows. It was originally written by Timo Sirainen, and released under the terms of the GNU GPL-2.0-or-later in January 1999.

open source instant messaging and VoIP client

instant messenger for Microsoft Windows, free software

Konversation is an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client built on the KDE Platform and is free software released under the terms of the GNU GPL-2.0-or-later. Konversation is currently maintained in the KDE Extragear Network module, which means that it has its own release cycle which is independent from the main KDE applications. It is the default IRC client in many prominent Linux distributions, such as openSUSE, the KDE spin of Fedora, and Kubuntu.

Shareaza is a peer-to-peer file sharing client running under Microsoft Windows which supports the Gnutella, Gnutella2 (G2), eDonkey, BitTorrent, FTP, HTTP and HTTPS network protocols and handles magnet links, ed2k links, and the now deprecated gnutella and Piolet links. It is available in 30 languages.

WeeChat (Wee Enhanced Environment for Chat) is a free and open-source Internet Relay Chat client that is designed to be light and fast. It is released under the terms of the GNU GPL-3.0-or-later and has been developed since 2003.

BitchX is a free IRC client that has been regarded as the most popular ircII-based IRC client. The initial implementation, written by "Trench" and "HappyCrappy", was a script for the IrcII chat client. It was converted to a program in its own right by panasync (Colten Edwards). BitchX 1.1 final was released in 2004. It is written in C and is a TUI application utilizing ncurses. GTK+ toolkit support has been dropped. It works on all Unix-like operating systems, and is distributed under a BSD license. It was originally based on ircII-EPIC, and eventually it was merged into the EPIC IRC client. I

KVIrc is a graphical IRC client for Linux, Unix, Mac OS and Windows. The name is an acronym of K Visual IRC in which the K stands for a dependency to KDE, which became optional from version 2.0.0. The software is based on the Qt framework and its code is released under a modified GNU General Public License.

HexChat is a discontinued Internet Relay Chat client and is a fork of XChat. It has a choice of a tabbed document interface or tree interface, support for multiple servers, and numerous configuration options. Both command-line and graphical versions are available.

ircII (pronounced i-r-c-two or irk-two, and sometimes referred to as IRC client, second edition) is a free, open-source Unix IRC and ICB client written in C. Initially released in the late 1980s, it is the oldest IRC client still maintained.

Instantbird is a discontinued cross-platform instant messaging client based on Mozilla's XULRunner and the open-source library libpurple used in Pidgin. Instantbird is free software available under the GNU General Public License. Over 250 add-ons allow user customization of, and addition of, features. On October 18, 2017, Florian Quèze announced that "... we are stopping development of Instantbird as a standalone product."

IRC client

Centericq is a text mode menu- and window-driven instant messaging interface that supports the ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, IRC, XMPP, LiveJournal, and Gadu-Gadu protocols.

IRC client for the Emacs text editor, written in Emacs Lisp

Smuxi is a cross-platform IRC client for the GNOME desktop inspired by Irssi. It pioneered the concept of separating the frontend client from the backend engine which manages connections to IRC servers inside a single graphical application.

'''Plouf's Java IRC (PJIRC''') is a web-based open-source IRC client that is written in Java. Any web browser that supports the Java Runtime Environment, or an alternative Java interpreter, can use the applet. Many IRC networks have a public installation of the applet for their network.

Bersirc is a discontinued open-source Internet Relay Chat client for the Microsoft Windows operating system. Linux and Mac OS X versions were "in development". Bersirc uses the Claro toolkit, which aims to provide an interface to native windowing systems and widgets on all operating systems. Microsoft .NET and Qt toolkit ports were also planned. The final version of Bersirc was 2.2.14.

rcirc is an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client written in Emacs Lisp. It is one of two IRC clients included in GNU Emacs since release 22.1, alongside ERC.

CGI:IRC is a CGI program written in Perl that allows access to IRC via a web browser. It is designed to be flexible and has many uses such as an IRC gateway for an IRC network, a chat-room for a website or to access IRC when stuck behind a restrictive firewall.