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BitlBee

IRC gateway to instant messaging networks

Chat & Communication ★ 646 stars Medium setup GPL-2.0

BitlBee acts as an IRC server that lets you connect to instant messaging networks through any IRC client. It exposes contacts as IRC users so you can chat across networks from a single interface.

Official siteSource code

Key features

  • Use IM networks via IRC
  • Very low resource use
  • OTR encryption support
  • Plugin architecture

Strengths

  • Released under the GPL-2.0 license
  • Written in C
  • Tiny footprint — runs in 32 MB RAM

Is BitlBee secure?

No known vulnerabilities affect BitlBee's latest release (3.5.1). OSV.dev lists 3 past advisories for the project; none of them applies to this release. No known vulnerabilities is not proof of security: it means none have been publicly catalogued.

  • Most recent fixed advisory CVE-2016-10188, published 2017-03-14 (3501 days ago)

Source: OSV.dev, checked 2026-10-14. How this is measured.

BitlBee replaces

Self-hosted Pidgin alternatives

Health badge

Maintain BitlBee? Add its health score to your README. The badge links back to this page.

SelfHostIndex: 42 · fair

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[![SelfHostIndex health score for BitlBee](https://selfhostindex.com/badge/bitlbee.svg)](https://selfhostindex.com/app/bitlbee/)
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<a href="https://selfhostindex.com/app/bitlbee/"><img src="https://selfhostindex.com/badge/bitlbee.svg" alt="SelfHostIndex health score for BitlBee"></a>
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   :alt: SelfHostIndex health score for BitlBee
   :target: https://selfhostindex.com/app/bitlbee/

The score is recomputed on every nightly rebuild from public repository data — see how it is calculated.

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