# IRC (Internet Relay Chat)

109 Hacker News commenters recommended IRC (Internet Relay Chat) and 47 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** People recommend IRC as a simple, lightweight, open chat protocol with no corporate strings and fun, engaged communities, but critics say it lacks modern features like history, images and mobile friendliness.

## Why people recommend it

- Simple, lightweight protocol (6 comments): "IRC is also very nice for it, and stupidly simple protocol even the dumbest LLM could interface with" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48459564)) "IRC also is not too complicated to use and does not require a large web app or other stuff like that" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46950088)) "IRC is lightweight and simple, and its shortcomings can be worked around without too much effort." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46963285))
- Open, free, no corporate ties (4 comments): "it shines as an example of simplicity and maintainability with no corporate strings attached" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46958798)) "IRC is there, despite slack and discord making closed privately hosted versions." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46333850)) "it respects your freedom, doesn't cost anything, isn't tied to a company" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50055646))
- Fun, engaging communities (5 comments): "I'd guess that both IRC and Discord have a much better track record of personal connection and helping people" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49863834)) "IRC is still my favorite, has the best clients, performance, server uptime, and IMO is the most fun" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50055626)) "The smartest people I have ever interacted with are on platforms like IRC, Matrix" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49279874))
- Reliable and long-lasting (4 comments): "It's reliable too, but it really fell behind the times and never pushed forward with additions to the spec and such." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49882012)) "IRC is still my favorite, has the best clients, performance, server uptime, and IMO is the most fun" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50055626)) "irc is one of the only ones that is still used, and mostly as it was 35 years ago" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50041704))

## What people warn about

- Missing basic modern chat features (7 comments): "It's reliable too, but it really fell behind the times and never pushed forward with additions to the spec and such." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49882012)) "I hope they enjoy communicating in plaintext, not having any chat history and being unable to send images." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50048060)) "IRC kinda sucks compared to modern chat and they refuse to implement features that are considered basic." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48057907))
- Unfriendly, poor on mobile (4 comments): "IRC shoehorned those into the connections awkwardly but it's still not often mandatory and registration is painful." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50041857)) "abysmal for access on mobile devices, very unfriendly for users, and extremely limited in functionality" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46970765)) "Once you add all that need on IRC its 2x as complex as matrix and harder to get into." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49138559))
- No history without a bouncer (2 comments): "have to upload it to a 3rd party, have to explain what a bouncer is to someone who just wants offline messages" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46956148)) "I hope they enjoy communicating in plaintext, not having any chat history and being unable to send images." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50048060))
- Unencrypted plaintext by default (2 comments): "I hope they enjoy communicating in plaintext, not having any chat history and being unable to send images." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50048060)) "it seems to be antiquated unencrypted live group chats, with no usable clients" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46614911))

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "IRC (Internet Relay Chat)", https://hackerapproved.com/p/irc/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).