Pidgin Alternatives

Pidgin is described as 'Chat program which lets you log into accounts on multiple chat networks simultaneously. This means that you can be chatting with friends on XMPP and sitting in an IRC channel at the same time' and is a leading instant messenger in the social & communications category. There are more than 100 alternatives to Pidgin for a variety of platforms, including Linux, Mac, Windows, Web-based and BSD apps. The best Pidgin alternative is Element. It's not free, so if you're looking for a free alternative, you could try Element or Matrix. Other great apps like Pidgin are Jami, Beeper, SeaMonkey and Element X.

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Alternatives list

  1. Messenger for Desktop is a wrapper for the official client messenger.com. Therefore it works like a regular browser which can only navigate to the messenger.com web app. MFD doesn't touch your messages, account or personal data. All that is handled securely by Facebook.

    84 Messenger for Desktop alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Alerts

    • Bundleware

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
     
  2. HoloIRC icon
     1 like

    HoloIRC is an open source IRC client for Android 4.0 and up. It is designed to be as simple to use as possible while being extremely small in size and fairly light in resources. It works with IRC bouncers as well as regular servers.

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Alerts

    • Discontinued

    Platforms

    • Android
    • Android Tablet
     
  3. MCabber icon
     5 likes

    MCabber is a small XMPP (Jabber) console client. It includes features such as SASL/SSL/TLS support, MUC (Multi-User Chat) support, history logging, command completion, OpenPGP encryption, OTR (Off-the-Record Messaging) support, dynamic modules and external action triggers.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • BSD
    • Cygwin
    • Xfce
     
  4.  5 likes

    WebIRC runs as a server and is always connected to your favorite IRC networks. Seamlessly open the same session from home, work, and your mobile devices to continue exactly where you left off.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Self-Hosted
     
  5. Chatty App icon
     1 like

    A simple-to-use messaging app for 1:1 communication and small groups supporting SMS, MMS, matrix and XMPP through libpurple.

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Linux
    • Flathub
    • GNOME
     
  6. Retro AIM Server is an instant messaging server that revives AOL Instant Messenger (and ICQ!) clients from the 2000s.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source (MIT)

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Self-Hosted
     
  7.  4 likes

    jakeIRC is a web-based Meteor IRC client that allows users to connect to their favorite IRC channels.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Alerts

    • Discontinued

    Platforms

    • Online
    • Self-Hosted
    • Meteor
    • npm
     
  8. A server-less network video phone that is powered by DirectX for real-time video streaming. SSuite UltraCam Video Phone was designed to be a server-less communicator for use within any LAN or Wi-Fi network.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Windows
     
  9. CGI:IRC icon
     5 likes

    CGI:IRC is a Perl/CGI program that lets you access IRC from a web browser, it is designed to be flexible and has many uses such as an IRC gateway for an IRC network, a chat-room for a website or to access IRC when stuck behind a restrictive firewall.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Linux
    • Online
    • BSD
    • Self-Hosted
    • Perl
     
  10. Gyach icon
     3 likes

    Gyach is a GTK+ based Yahoo! Chat client.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Alerts

    • Discontinued

    Platforms

    • Linux
    • BSD
     
  11.  4 likes

    Toxic is a client with an ncurses interface, written entirely in C. It has support for all basic features, as well as 1-on-1 audio/video chats, and is capable of working on bare-bones systems that lack graphical interfaces.

    Cost / License

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Linux
    • BSD
     
  12. BuddyTalk is a java based instant messanger, you can login with your gmail username and password to chat with your friends or to test the software you can login with the provided username and pass. BuddyTalk is based on smack and xmpp protocol.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Windows
     
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