# Irssi

5 Hacker News commenters recommended Irssi and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** A terminal IRC client people recommend for precise keyboard control, scripts and aliases, and use from a phone through tmux. Critics call it bloated.

## Why people recommend it

- Keyboard control, scripts and aliases (2 comments): "I use irssi inside tmux from my phone a lot and you can get pretty precise control with keyboard shortcuts" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49487932)) "I have scripts and aliases set up in irssi and I can still use those from my phone." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50055197))
- Preferred over other chat clients (2 comments): "I enjoy irssi much more than Gajim, Dino, or Conversations." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46959975)) "significantly worse than irssi or weechat" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46959789))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Microsoft Comic Chat](https://hackerapproved.com/p/microsoft-comic-chat.md): 22 recommend
- [Goguma IRC client](https://hackerapproved.com/p/goguma.md): 5 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Irssi", https://hackerapproved.com/p/irssi/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).