A free, portable and lightweight Internet Relay Chat (IRC) server for small or private networks, written in C.
584+2 this week84CGPL-2.0Updated 14 days ago
#chat-server
Best open-source chat server software (2026)
Chat servers route messages between clients, for private teams or public networks. Choose by protocol first, since XMPP, IRC and custom websocket APIs each need matching clients. Tinode is a self-hostable messaging server with native mobile and web clients, under GPL-3.0. Ergo is a modern IRC server that bundles services and a bouncer. Openfire is a Java XMPP server under Apache 2.0, while Tinode and ngircd are GPL, which matters if you plan to distribute changes.
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5 repositories
A Java XMPP real-time collaboration server for instant messaging, licensed under Apache 2.0.
3.1K1.4KJavaApache-2.0Well maintainedUpdated 21 hours ago
Self-hostable instant messaging server in Go with native Android, iOS and web clients, plus JSON/websocket and gRPC APIs.
13.6K+11 this week2.1KGoGPL-3.0Updated 13 days ago
A chat server built on uWebSockets.js that offers an alternative to XMPP, with a Node.js backend, MongoDB and Redis.
16116JavaScriptGPL-3.0Updated last month
A modern IRC server written in Go, combining an ircd, a services framework, and a bouncer in one daemon.
3.4K249GoMITWell maintainedUpdated 6 days ago