Pidgin Alternatives

One of the most popular alternatives to Pidgin is Element, which is open source and free for personal use. Other popular alternatives are Matrix, Beeper, Jami and Jitsi Desktop. You're spoiled for choice with Instant Messengers like Pidgin: we list more than 100 alternatives for Linux, Mac, Windows, the web and Android.

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Alternatives
Pidgin alternatives page was last updated

Alternatives list

  1. Stack Browser icon
     24 likes

    Stack is an Internet launchpad that increases the efficiency of working with the web for the average internet user by allowing simultaneous use of multiple web apps within a neatly organized working environment.

    Cost / License

    • Freemium
    • Proprietary

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    Good alternative?
     
  2. Monal IM icon
     4 likes

    Monal is an open source iOS and macOS XMPP Chat-Client. It can connect to any standard XMPP chat server such as Gtalk or Facebook chat.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • iPhone
    • iPad
    Good alternative?
     
  3. 0xchat icon
     4 likes

    0xchat is a secure chat app built on the Nostr protocol. It prioritizes security, featuring private key login, encrypted private chats and contacts, encrypted group chats.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source (MIT)

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Android
    • iPhone
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Mac
    • BSD
    Good alternative?
     
  4. Librem Chat icon
     7 likes

    End-to-end encrypted chat, VOIP, and video calling used by millions of people.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Alerts

    • Discontinued

    Platforms

    • Android
    • iPhone
    • Android Tablet
    • iPad
    • F-Droid
    Good alternative?
     
  5. Minbif icon
     1 like

    Minbif aims to use the libpurple library from the Pidgin project to provide an IRC-friendly instant messaging client.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Linux
    Good alternative?
     
  6. Vacuum-IM icon
     6 likes

    Vacuum-IM is a crossplatform Jabber client. The core program is just a plugin loader - all functionality is made available via plugins. This enforces modularity and ensures well defined component interaction via interfaces.

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Alerts

    • Discontinued

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Haiku
    Good alternative?
     
  7. Ayttm icon
     12 likes

    Ayttm is an instant messaging (aka chat) client that provides all-in-one chat functionality for several major instant messaging services from one simple program. Ayttm "Contacts" allow you to refer to several accounts of the same person from a single contact name...

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Alerts

    • Discontinued

    Platforms

    • Windows
    • Linux
    • BSD
    Good alternative?
     
  8. CoreIRC icon
     Like

    IRC chat client and DCC file transfers.

    Cost / License

    • Freemium
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Online
    • Android
    Good alternative?
     
  9. Tuwunel icon
     2 likes

    Tuwunel is a high-performance Matrix homeserver written entirely in Rust — the official successor to conduwuit, sponsored by the Swiss government and deployed for citizens.

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Linux
    • Android
    • BSD
    • Self-Hosted
    • Kubernetes
    • Docker
    • Docker Hub
    Good alternative?
     
  10. Kadu icon
     18 likes

    Kadu is an open source Jabber/XMPP and Gadu-Gadu instant messenger client for Linux, *BSD, Mac and Windows.

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Alerts

    • Discontinued

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • BSD
    Good alternative?
     
  11. Glowing Bear icon
     6 likes

    Glowing Bear is a sleek, modern web frontend that securely connects to a running instance of WeeChat using its built-in relay protocol. It relies on WeeChat to do all the heavy lifting and then provides some nice features on top of that, like...

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Online
    • Self-Hosted
    • Google Chrome
    • WeeChat
    Good alternative?
     
  12. Qwebirc icon
     7 likes

    qwebirc is a web based AJAX IRC client.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Platforms

    • Windows
    • Linux
    • BSD
    • Self-Hosted
    Good alternative?
     
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