mIRC
Hacker ApprovedRanked 2 of 4 IRC clients by recommenders
People recommend it as a fast, reliable, fully featured IRC chat client with its own scripting language that has kept working for decades. The most common caveat is that it runs only on Windows.
People recommend it as a fast, reliable, fully featured IRC chat client with its own scripting language that has kept working for decades. The most common caveat is that it runs only on Windows.
13 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 12
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 92%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 30 years
Median of the 3 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it carries the badge
- 12 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 12 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 5 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
Fast, reliable, and still works
“Fit a 1.44M diskette. Launched fully before you let go of the mouse button, on an old POS 486.”
Comment from 11 Oct 2026 in “IRCv3” “I however could take mirc from like 1995 and still use everything”
Comment from 11 Oct 2026 in “IRCv3” “It still works great and it's still being updated!”
Comment from 13 Nov 2025 in “Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper” - Comment from 14 Jan 2026 in “Why IRC is better than Real Life”
Ages well, feels like old days
“It pretty much works like in the old days and has aged very well IMHO”
Comment from 11 Oct 2026 in “IRCv3” “mIRC was my favourite era of async communication”
Comment from 17 Feb 2026 in “Meta to retire messenger desktop app and messenger.com in April 2026” “mIRC was the good old days.”
Comment from 11 Oct 2026 in “IRCv3”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Windows only
“it looks like mIRC still only runs on windows”
Comment from 23 Oct 2026 on Hacker News
Other IRC clients people recommend
The three most recommended other IRC clients, 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.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Comic Chat | 22 | 9 | 71% | 2 | — | — |
| mIRCThis page | 12 | 1 | 92% | 5 | 30 yrs3 owners | Approved |
| Irssi | 5 | 2 | 71% | 5 | — | — |
| Goguma IRC client | 5 | 0 | 100% | 2 | — | — |
What people said
All 13 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“it looks like mIRC still only runs on windows”
“It pretty much works like in the old days and has aged very well IMHO”
“mIRC was the good old days.”
“I find the experience preferable to Discord”
“Fit a 1.44M diskette. Launched fully before you let go of the mouse button, on an old POS 486.”
“I largely credit mIRC for getting me into computers and programming”
“I however could take mirc from like 1995 and still use everything”
“I became a happy mIRC user well over 20 years ago”
“mIRC was my favourite era of async communication”
“How fast and reliable it was.”
“mIRC and many other clients just sat there and did their thing.”
“It still works great and it's still being updated!”
“It was an incredibly fully featured chat client - with hundreds of features, and its own scripting language for more advanced use.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.