this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2026
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IRC exists and works great! :D
I'm on a self hosted network that is active almost around the clock, full of chill, wholesome and welcoming people. I can PM details for anyone who wants to come check us out (there is a webchat option, no need to set up a IRC client if you just want to have a look), don't know if advertising is frowned upon here or not and I don't want to spam or upset anyone.
Edit: Since my account is too young to be sending private messages to strangers, I'll add the info here:
The server address is irc.inthemansion.com port: 6697
Join #lobby and say "hello" :)
Web chat can be found on the front page here https://inthemansion.com/ it will by default make you join #lobby. So if you are unfamiliar with IRC, that is the easiest way to try it out.
Implying IRC is in any way replacement for discord is absurd.
Yes, I agree. No need to buy nitro, no gif spam, no emoji spam, not relying on one corporations good will. It is indeed much better ;D
I've been on IRC for 30+ years. It's great for what it is.
Until it can do voice and screensharing, it's not even in the same ball park.
Well obviously. At no point did I suggest that IRC can do everything Discord can, or that it can replace the things Discord does. All I said is that it exists and works well.
My problem with irc was not remembering to connect and it not being persistent, so when I did show up it'd be empty unless it just happened to be in the middle of others talking. But I did want to get into it.
IRC is older than World Wide Web, and unfortunately there wasn't as much innovation over years.
It was designated for a live chat so thought of also storing history and replay it didn't make sense then (the reasoning was that if you needed to send something that's not live, why not use email?)
Though people come up with own adhoc solutions like for example mentioned bouncer, some networks also had memo service where you could leave a message and there were also bots sitting chat history.
If features like these are important to you, I didn't think you will be happy with IRC, adding them would require rearchitecting the whole thing.
You can see for example slack doing it (it is heavily influenced by IRC although it evolved so much that maybe that is less visible now)
I didn't have a chance to play with it yet, but I heard Matrix could be the successor to IRC.
Nothing against IRC, I spent years on it and loved it, but it isn't great if important features for you are things like chart history when you were offline, embedding pictures in chat, threads, audio/video chat etc
The things where IRC still rules is: simplicity, very low resource requirements, and no accounts need, just pick a nick and you are in (this is also why keeping history for each user is so hard to add, when servers didn't really handle accounts.)
That can be solved with a bouncer. The bouncer stays connected and loads chat history, when you do connect. :)
Maybe it was just the server I tried, but I could never get it to work. Or maybe I configured it wrong 🤷🏼♂️
How's mobile support?
Some bouncers need to have the chat history replay set to enabled, some clients need a plugin to replay the history. I use Soju+weechat and had to do a bit of configuring to get it to work, but now it does work fine. Also, some channels have a server side history replay enabled, for example, in our network the main channel replays automagically 15 last messages and you can do a command to replay the last 100 messages.
Mobile support has improved a lot lately. There is a couple of users on the network who only use mobile to chat. Personally I don't use any, so I can't say much about it.
What IRC server are you using?
I've been using IRC for going on 30 years now and always love finding new/interesting Servers so I would appreciate a PM with details so I can check it out, thanks!
My account is too young to be sending private messages, so I'll share the details here:
irc.inthemansion.com port: 6697 #lobby is the main channel
I would also like the details, if possible.
Well, turns out, I cant send messages because I'm a "very new account or very low reputation" :D I guess I'll share here, mods can delete the comment if this sort of promotion is not allowed :)
The server address is irc.inthemansion.com port: 6697
Web chat can be found on the front page here https://inthemansion.com/
Join #lobby and say a greeting :)
I'd like the details to join if you wouldn't mind pming me. I run a server so I may set it up. Thanks