Last Updated on April 11, 2026
Grumpy is billed as a very advanced IRC client. It aims to take the best out of every major IRC client and leave out the bad.
It’s designed for old school IRC users who need to be able to take most out of IRC. Grumpy is currently a work in progress and is unfinished.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Distributed core (grumpyd) similar to Quassel IRC.
- Modular design, you can take the core library and build a different interface on top of it.
- Very scalable and extendable, support for extensions.
- Supports all IRC standards and networks.
- Supports IRCv3 protocol.
- Extensible and very powerful auto-completion mechanism.
Website: github.com/grumpy-irc/grumpy
Support:
Developer: Petr Ben
License: GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0
Grumpy is written in C++. Learn C++ with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| IRC Clients | |
|---|---|
| Konversation | User friendly client for KDE Plasma |
| Smuxi | Smart MUltipleXed Irc - the IRC client for sophisticated users |
| Pidgin | Easy to use and free chat client supporting lots of protocols |
| KVIrc | KDE based next generation IRC client with module support |
| Quassel IRC | Distributed, KDE4/Qt based |
| Halloy | IRC client written in Rust |
| Polari | Simple to use IRC Client |
| Srain | Modern IRC client written in GTK |
| HexChat | Multi-network IRC client based on XChat |
| dxirc | Simple yet capable cross-platform IRC client |
| Grumpy | Advanced IRC client |
| Tithon | Modern, cross-platform IRC client |
| Communi | Simple and elegant cross-platform IRC client |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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