Adium
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 27 of 48 messaging apps by recommenders
Free Mac chat app that combines many messaging networks in one window, with persistent logs and customizable interfaces that some prefer to modern messengers.
Free Mac chat app that combines many messaging networks in one window, with persistent logs and customizable interfaces that some prefer to modern messengers.
11 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 10
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 91%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 10 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 10 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Unified messaging across many networks
“offered unified messaging and features like persistent logs and customizable interfaces”
Comment from 17 Feb 2026 in “Meta to retire messenger desktop app and messenger.com in April 2026” “a single app such as trillian or Adium was enough to communicate on all of them”
Comment from 11 Sep 2026 in “Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin” “I can group my chats in iChat and Adium into different windows as I want”
Comment from 4 Aug 2026 in “Native Apps Should Be Avoided Whenever Possible” Customizable interface, skins and smileys
“offered unified messaging and features like persistent logs and customizable interfaces”
Comment from 17 Feb 2026 in “Meta to retire messenger desktop app and messenger.com in April 2026” “One of my happiest open source memories was creating an Adiumy skin for my college”
Comment from 25 Aug 2026 in “Jabber/XMPP: 25 Years of Digital Independence” “Loved Adium and the community was great in building custom smileys”
Comment from 26 Aug 2026 in “Jabber/XMPP: 25 Years of Digital Independence” Better than modern messaging apps
“Adium was a far better messaging experience than anything modern.”
Comment from 17 Feb 2026 in “Meta to retire messenger desktop app and messenger.com in April 2026” “One of the best apps ever created.”
Comment from 6 Aug 2026 in “A Gallery of Installing from .dmg”
Other messaging apps people recommend
The four most recommended other messaging apps, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 48 messaging apps, rankedWhat people said
10 of the 11 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“a single app such as trillian or Adium was enough to communicate on all of them”
“Loved Adium and the community was great in building custom smileys”
“One of my happiest open source memories was creating an Adiumy skin for my college”
“One of the best apps ever created.”
“I can group my chats in iChat and Adium into different windows as I want”
“offered unified messaging and features like persistent logs and customizable interfaces”
“Adium was a far better messaging experience than anything modern.”
“it was a great experience”
“Adium on Bonjour has been flaky with my VLAN setup at home”
“being able to easily control notifications etc was a game changer”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.