Comparison of Internet Relay Chat daemons
The following tables compare general and technical information including the differences in feature sets between popular IRC daemons. Please see the individual products' articles or websites or the cited references for further information. This article is neither all-inclusive nor necessarily up-to-date.
Servers
IRC daemon |
Creator/network |
Basis |
Programming language |
First public release |
Latest version (numeric 351) |
Software license |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bahamut |
DALnet |
DreamForge, IRCD-Hybrid |
C |
1999 |
bahamut-1.8.6 |
GPL |
bIRCd |
DAMnet |
DreamForge |
C |
1999 |
bIRCd-2.1.0rc4 |
GPL |
Charybdis |
nenolod, jilles, dwr, gxti |
ircd-ratbox, IRCD-Hybrid, ircu, ShadowIRCd |
C |
2005 |
charybdis-3.1.0 |
GPL/BSD |
ConferenceRoom |
WebMaster Incorporated |
(from scratch) |
C++ |
1996 |
ConferenceRoom/3.5 |
Proprietary |
csircd |
Comstud |
(from scratch) |
C |
1998 |
csircd-1.14 |
GPL |
InspIRCd Development Team |
(from scratch) |
C++ |
2002 |
1.1.22 |
GPL |
|
IRCd |
Jarkko Oikarinen, IRCnet |
(from scratch) |
C |
1988 |
2.95 |
GPL |
IRCD-Hybrid |
Hybrid Development Team, EFnet |
irc2.8 |
C |
1997 |
7.2.3 |
GPL |
ircd-ratbox |
Aaron Sethman, Lee Hardy, EFnet |
Hybrid 7-rc1 |
C |
2002 |
ircd-ratbox-3.0.0 |
GPL |
ircu |
Undernet Coder Committee |
irc2.7 |
C |
1991 |
u2.10.12.12 |
GPL |
ithildin |
Chip Norkus |
(from scratch) |
C |
2006 |
1.1 |
BSD |
Nefarious IRCu |
Evilnet Development, AfterNET |
ircu2 |
C |
2004 |
u2.10.11.07+Nefarious(1.2.0)+[2212 2008-08-03] |
GPL |
ngIRCd |
Alex Barton |
(from scratch) |
C |
2001 |
ngircd-14.1 |
GPL |
OfficeIRC Server |
Office IRC Inc, Paul Heinlein |
(from scratch) |
VB.net |
2006 |
2.2 |
Proprietary |
PleXusIRCd |
Rizon, thaprince, static |
Hybrid 7.2.3 |
C |
2005 |
hybrid-7.2.3+plexus-3.0.1(20081028_0-520) |
GPL |
pureIRCd |
Dennis Fisch aka Diligent |
(from scratch) |
C |
2002 |
? |
GPL |
ShadowIRCd |
dwr, Eko, jdhore, jilles, nenolod |
Charybdis |
C |
2008 |
shadowircd-6.0.0pre4 |
GPL |
solid-ircd |
Gabriel Baez |
Bahamut |
C |
? |
solid-ircd 3.4.8 |
GPL |
Synchronet IRCd |
Randy E. Sommerfeld |
(from scratch) |
JavaScript |
2003 |
SynchronetIRCd-1.3a(1.151) |
GPL |
UnrealIRCd |
UnrealIRCd Team |
EliteIRCd (potvin) |
C |
1999 |
Unreal3.2.8.1 |
GPL |
WeIRCd |
Eloxoph IRC Network |
(from scratch) |
C |
2007 |
WeIRCd 0.6.0.2 |
GPL |
Obsolete Servers
The following servers are no longer maintained, but basic details are maintained for posterity. They will not be listed in feature comparison tables.
IRC daemon |
Creator/network |
Basis |
Programming language |
First public release |
Outcome |
Software license |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
PTlink IRC Server |
PTlink IRC Software |
Hybrid 6 |
C |
2001 (v.6) |
(now unmaintained) |
GPL |
Asuka |
QuakeNet Dev Team |
ircu |
C |
? |
(replaced by snircd) |
GPL |
Austhex |
AustNet Development |
ircu2.9 |
C, Scheme |
? |
(replaced by inspircd) |
GPL |
bircd |
beware |
(from scratch) |
Delphi |
2002? |
(now unmaintained) |
GPL |
dancer-ircd |
freenode |
Hybrid 6 |
C |
1999 |
(replaced by hyperion) |
GPL |
DreamForge |
DALnet |
irc2.8.mu3 |
C |
1994 (dal), 1997? (df) |
(replaced by bahamut) |
GPL |
hyperion |
freenode |
dancer-ircd 1.0.35+pre2 |
C |
2005 |
(to be replaced by ircd-seven) |
GPL |
IRCXpro Server |
IRCXpro, Paul Heinlein |
IRCPlus |
Visual Basic |
2002 |
(replaced by OfficeIRC) |
Proprietary |
pircd |
Jay F Kominek |
(from scratch) |
Perl |
1999 |
(now unmaintained) |
Open Source (custom) |
QuakeIRCd |
QuakeIRCd Team, Tiburon |
UnrealIRCd |
C |
2003 (v1.1) |
(now unmaintained) |
GPL |
SorIrcd |
SorceryNet |
dal4.4.10 and irc2.8.mu3 |
C |
1996 |
(replaced by Charybdis) |
GPL |
UltimateIRCd |
ShadowRealm Creations |
DreamForge 2.8 |
C |
2001 |
(now unmaintained) |
GPL |
Viagra IRCd |
Chris Schiffner |
Titan |
C |
2003 |
(now unmaintained) |
GPL |
Operating system support
The operating systems the daemons can run on without emulation; also supported event dispatch facilities for network sockets (see IRCd for further information).
IRC daemon |
Windows |
Mac OS X |
Linux |
BSD |
Solaris |
HP-UX |
AIX |
select() |
poll() |
kqueue |
RT signals |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bahamut |
? |
? |
|||||||||||||
bIRCd |
? |
? |
|||||||||||||
Charybdis |
|||||||||||||||
ConferenceRoom |
|||||||||||||||
InspIRCd |
|||||||||||||||
IRCD |
|||||||||||||||
ircd-ratbox |
|||||||||||||||
ircu |
|||||||||||||||
ithildin |
? |
? |
? |
||||||||||||
Nefarious IRCu |
? |
||||||||||||||
ngIRCd |
|||||||||||||||
OfficeIRC Server |
? |
? |
|||||||||||||
PleXusIRCd |
|||||||||||||||
pureIRCd |
|||||||||||||||
ShadowIRCd |
|||||||||||||||
solid-ircd |
? |
? |
|||||||||||||
Synchronet IRCd |
? |
? |
|||||||||||||
UnrealIRCd |
? |
? |
|||||||||||||
WeIRCd |
{{?}} |
{{?}} |
{{?}} |
||||||||||||
Technology
Various networking and IRC technology implemented to date.
IRC daemon |
Modularity |
Remote Includes |
IPv6 |
Client SSL |
SSL Linking |
Zip Linking |
Hostmasking / Cloaking |
Services Integration (built-in services) |
LDAP Authentication |
IRCX Support |
SASL Support |
Server Protocol |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bahamut |
TS5 with extensions |
|||||||||||
bIRCd |
RFC 1459 and TSpre8 |
|||||||||||
Charybdis |
TS6 with extensions |
|||||||||||
ConferenceRoom |
Proprietary, binary |
|||||||||||
InspIRCd |
(1.2) |
TS6 based [http://inspircd.org/wiki/InspIRCd_Spanning_Tree_(1.2) Spanning Tree], proprietary |
||||||||||
IRCD |
RFC 1459 and RFC 2813 with SID/UID |
|||||||||||
ircd-ratbox |
TS6 |
|||||||||||
ircu |
||||||||||||
ithildin |
Module-dependent |
|||||||||||
Nefarious IRCu |
P10 with extensions |
|||||||||||
ngIRCd |
RFC 1459 and RFC 2813 |
|||||||||||
OfficeIRC Server |
DreamForge/UnrealIRCd compatible |
|||||||||||
PleXusIRCd |
? |
TS5/TS6 |
||||||||||
pureIRCd |
||||||||||||
ShadowIRCd |
TS6 with extensions |
|||||||||||
solid-ircd |
TS5 with extensions |
|||||||||||
Synchronet IRCd |
TS5 with extensions |
|||||||||||
UnrealIRCd |
DreamForge/TS5 with extensions |
|||||||||||
WeIRCd |
||||||||||||
Features
IRC server features, mostly extensions to RFC 1459. Probably also implementations of RFC 2810, RFC 2811, RFC 2812, RFC 2813, and possibly IRCX.
- +channels (In early IRCds, these were simply named channels. At least one modern IRCd (IRCD) uses the + prefix for modeless channels, ie no chanops and channel mode forced to +nt. This is described in RFC 2811.)
- #channels ("+channels" were later replaced with "#channels" in version 2.7, numeric channels were removed entirely and channel bans (mode +b) were implemented.)
- &channels (irc2.8, those that exist only on the current server, rather than the entire network)
- !channels (irc2.10, those that are theoretically safe from suffering from the many ways that a user could exploit a channel by "riding a netsplit"; IRCds using timestamping provide (most of) this functionality on #channels)
- %#channels (#channels whose name are in UTF-8 for IRCX)
- %&channels (&channels whose name are in UTF-8 for IRCX)
- %!channels (!channels whose name are in UTF-8 for IRCX)
IRC daemon |
Channel Types |
Halfop Support (+h %) |
Admin/Protect Support (+a/+u &/!/*) |
Founder/Owner Support (+q ~/.) |
Operator Prefixing |
Advanced Operator ACL |
Operator "Levels" |
vHost via i:line (or equivalent) |
i18n Nicknames |
RDBMS Integration (SQL) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bahamut |
# |
|||||||||
bIRCd |
# & |
|||||||||
Charybdis |
# & |
|||||||||
ConferenceRoom |
# & |
|||||||||
InspIRCd |
# |
|||||||||
IRCD |
# & ! + |
? |
||||||||
ircd-ratbox |
# & |
|||||||||
ircu |
# & |
|||||||||
ithildin |
# |
|||||||||
Nefarious IRCu |
# & |
|||||||||
ngIRCd |
# |
|||||||||
OfficeIRC Server |
# %# & %& |
|||||||||
PleXusIRCd |
# & |
? |
? |
|||||||
pureIRCd |
# |
? |
? |
? |
? |
? |
? |
? |
||
ShadowIRCd |
# & |
|||||||||
solid-ircd |
# |
|||||||||
Synchronet IRCd |
# & |
|||||||||
UnrealIRCd |
# |
iso8859-1/2/7/8-I/9/16, windows-1250/1251, Multibyte |
||||||||
WeIRCd |
# |
|||||||||
IRC daemon |
Connect-flood detection |
Channel flood controls |
Join throttling |
Spamfilter |
Channel Censor |
Variable per-channel banlist size |
Timed bans |
DNSBL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bahamut |
||||||||
bIRCd |
||||||||
Charybdis |
||||||||
ConferenceRoom |
||||||||
InspIRCd |
||||||||
IRCD |
? |
? / ? |
? |
? / ? |
? / ? |
? |
? |
? |
ircd-ratbox |
||||||||
ircu |
? |
? / ? |
? |
? / ? |
? / ? |
? |
? |
|
ithildin |
Module |
? |
||||||
Nefarious IRCu |
||||||||
ngIRCd |
||||||||
OfficeIRC Server |
||||||||
PleXusIRCd |
? |
|||||||
pureIRCd |
? |
? / ? |
? |
? / ? |
? / ? |
? |
? |
? |
ShadowIRCd |
||||||||
solid-ircd |
||||||||
Synchronet IRCd |
||||||||
UnrealIRCd |
||||||||
WeIRCd |
||||||||
See also
- IRCd
- IRC services
- Internet Relay Chat
- IRCX
- Comparison of IRC clients
- Comparison of IRC services
- Comparison of instant messaging clients
- Comparison of instant messaging protocols
External links
simple:Comparison of Internet Relay Chat daemons