The following tables compare general and technical information between a number of notable IRC client programs which have been discussed in independent, reliable prior published sources. General Basic general information about the notableclients: creator/company, license, etc. Clients listed on a light purple background are no longer in active development. Release history A brief overview of the release history. Operating system support The operating systems on which the clients can run natively (without emulation). Unix and Unix-like operating systems: Unix (BSD): 386BSD, BSD/OS, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, SunOS, ULTRIX Unix (System V): AIX, A/UX, HP-UX, IRIX, SCO OpenServer, Solaris, UnixWare Unix-like: Linux, NeXTSTEP, OpenVMS, OSF/1, QNX, Tru64 UNIX Protocol support What IRC related protocols and standards are supported by each client. Direct Client-to-Client (DCC) support The Direct Client-to-Client Protocol (DCC) has been the primary method of establishing connections directly between IRC clients for a long time now. Once established, DCC connections bypass the IRC network and servers, allowing for all sorts of data to be transferred between clients including files and direct chat sessions. IRCv3 Support This software is compliant natively; other software may be compliant with extensions. IRCv3 SASL Mechanisms IRC SASL authentication primarily uses the same mechanisms as SASL in other protocols. Most commonly: PLAIN as defined by RFC 4616 EXTERNAL as defined by RFC 4422 SCRAM-SHA-256 as defined by RFC 7677 Features Information on what features each of the clients support. See also Comparison of cross-platform instant messaging clients Comparison of user features of messaging platforms Comparison of instant messaging protocols Comparison of mobile IRC clients Comparison of VoIP software List of SIP software Comparison of LAN messengers References Internet Relay Chat clients Internet Relay Chat clients