Choosing an IRC client
There are several different ways to connect to IRC; this page gives an overview of good clients for first-time IRC users. Once you have chosen a client to use, please refer to our repository of instructions for setting up SASL, which is our preferred authentication method.
If you’re interested in ensuring the security of your connection, please refer to our connection guide.
Connecting without installing anything
If you cannot or do not wish to install a client on your computer, you can use a web client.
We provide two web clients:
IRCCloud is a popular web client service that keeps you connected after closing the page and has a limited free plan. It also has iOS and Android apps.
Installing an IRC client
There are dozens of IRC clients to choose from, here are a selection of clients that are easy to install and use:
GUI clients
These are clients that you navigate primarily with your mouse cursor or touch.
Desktop clients:
- Halloy - Windows, Linux, macOS (free)
- Hexchat - Windows, Linux (free)
- Konversation - Windows, Linux (free)
- LimeChat - macOS (free)
- mIRC - Windows (paid)
- Pidgin - Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, Windows (free)
- Textual - macOS (paid)
Mobile clients:
- LimeChat - iOS (paid)
- Palaver - iOS (paid)
- RevolutionIRC - Android, also on F-Droid (free)
- Goguma - Android, also on F-Droid (free)
Terminal clients
Terminal or text-based clients are clients which you primarily navigate with keyboard shortcuts. These typically do not need mouse navigation, so they are great for running on servers and accessing remotely.
Both of these are free and run under Linux, macOS, and Windows (using WSL or Cygwin)