Irssi is a terminal based IRC client for UNIX systems. It also supports SILC and ICB protocols via plugins.
Being a fullscreen, termcap based client, with many features, Irssi is easily extensible through scripts and modules.
Unlike some text mode IRC clients, Irssi is not based on the ircII code, and was written from scratch.
The software uses a text-mode user interface.
Key Features
- Autologging – will log channels, queries and special windows.
- Completely themeable. Every single message can be themed. True colours can be used in your themes.
- Modular Formatting and themes.
- Configurable keybindings – allows users to modify the default keybindings and create your own so you can customize your client.
- Paste detection – tries to detect when you are pasting large amounts of text, by looking at the speed that characters are entered.
- Perl scripting with a wide range of available extensions.
- Irssi-proxy – plugin which allows to bind a port to each IRC server you are connected to.
- Transparent upgrading.
- Recode support.
- Cross-platform support – runs under Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X, and Windows.
Website: irssi.org
Support: Documentation, FAQ, GitHub Code Repository
Developer: Valentin Batz, Wouter Coekaerts, Jochen Eisinger, Geert Hauwaerts, Jilles Tjoelker, Alexander Færøy, Jase Thew, dequis, Ailin Nemui, Giuseppe and many contributors – Timo Sirainen (original code)
License: GNU General Public License v2.0

Irssi is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Console IRC Clients | |
|---|---|
| WeeChat | Wee Enhanced Environment for Chat; very light and extensible |
| Irssi | Console based client supporting SILC and ICB protocols |
| glirc | Advanced client maintaining a model of the IRC connection state |
| tiny | Rust based IRC client |
| ERC | Powerful, modular, and extensible IRC client for Emacs |
| ScrollZ | Advanced ircII-based IRC client |
| ircc | A single C file which implements a usable IRC client |
| senpai | IRC client that works best with bouncers |
| EPIC | Based on ircII, EPIC excels at scripting |
| catgirl | Targets FreeBSD, OpenBSD, macOS and Linux |
| zuse | Sleek, minimal IRC client for your terminal. |
| rirc | Minimalistic IRC client |
| kirc | Tiny IRC client |
| Swirc | Console based ICB and IRC client |
| Xaric | irc client similar to (and forked from) BitchX and ircII |
| insomnia | Frontend for the hii IRC client |
| ii | Minimalist FIFO and filesystem-based IRC client |
| hii | File-based IRC client |
| Circada | Comes with two modes, normal chat mode and the navigation mode |
| BarnOwl | Forked from the ktools owl project |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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