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IRC Clients
This is a list of current IRC clients available in Debian (either in Stable/Testing/Unstable). It does not attempt to compare these clients. There is no significance attached to order of appearance, the list is organized alphabetically. The popularity-contest install count as of 2023-05-27 is shown parenthetically following each package's description. Try a few and decide which one you like best. Please add to the list if your favorite IRC client is not here.
Alice - web browser IRC plugin (20)
BarnOwl - curses-based text client supporting multiple protocols (15)
catgirl - TLS-only terminal IRC client (6)
Circe - client for IRC in Emacs (33)
EPIC - ircII interface (46)
Finch - text-based client supporting multiple protocols (605)
glirc - console IRC client written in Haskell (25)
HexChat - requires GTK (10486)
ircII - oldest IRC client still being maintained (245)
Konversation - requires KDE (418)
KVIrc - graphical IRC client based on KDE/Qt5 (154)
Liece - IRC client for Emacs (4)
Pidgin - supports multiple protocols via plugin system (12439)
if stuck on "Waiting for network connection…," try pidgin -f
Polari - requires GNOME (7393)
Quassel - distributed IRC client (2163)
Riece - IRC client for EMacs (15)
ScrollZ - advanced ircII-based IRC client (19)
Srain - modern graphical IRC client based on GTK+ (13)
Swirc - text mode (5)
TalkSoup - IRC client for GNUstep (19)
Telepathy IDLE - IRC plugin for KDE Plasma messaging system (8501)
tinyIRC - ncurses-based text client (39)
WeeChat - text mode (1048)
Other IRC software
Web based IRC client
Web based www-to-irc gateways are useful if you're behind a firewall that blocks irc traffic (or if you don't want to install an IRC client software):
http://www.mibbit.com/chat/ (supports https).
See Also
External Links
For a client comparison, please see Wikipedia's comparison of IRC clients.