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Quassel IRC

Distributed IRC client with an always-on core

Chat & Communication ★ 793 stars Medium setup GPL-3.0

Quassel is a distributed IRC client built around a central core that stays connected and one or more clients that attach to it. The core acts as a permanent bouncer storing backlog for all devices.

Official siteSource code

Key features

  • Always-on core bouncer
  • Synced backlog across devices
  • Qt desktop clients
  • PostgreSQL or SQLite storage

Strengths

  • Released under the GPL-3.0 license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Written in C++
  • Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM

Is Quassel IRC secure?

No known vulnerabilities affect Quassel IRC's latest release (0.14.0). OSV.dev lists 4 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-2021-34825, published 2021-06-17 (1945 days ago)

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

Quassel IRC replaces

Self-hosted Slack alternatives

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SelfHostIndex: 64 · good

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