SHSelfHostIndex

Atheme IRC Services vs Berty

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted chat & communication options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
AT Atheme IRC Services Modular IRC services framework for large networks VS BE Berty Peer-to-peer messaging app that works offline
FeatureAtheme IRC ServicesBerty
CategoryChat & CommunicationChat & Communication
LicenseISCApache-2.0
LanguageCTypeScript
Setup difficultyHardHard
Min. RAM64 MB256 MB
Deploymentbare-metal, sourcebare-metal, source
GitHub stars★ 428★ 9,268
First released20052018
ReplacesSlackWhatsApp, Signal

Why pick each one

Choose Atheme IRC Services if…

  • Released under the ISC license
  • Written in C
  • Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM
Atheme IRC Services details

Choose Berty if…

  • Released under the Apache-2.0 license
  • Mature project with 9.3k GitHub stars
  • Written in TypeScript
  • Tiny footprint — runs in 256 MB RAM
Berty details

Frequently asked questions

Is Atheme IRC Services or Berty better?

Neither is universally better. Berty has the larger community; both share a hard setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Atheme IRC Services and Berty free and open-source?

Yes. Atheme IRC Services is licensed under ISC and Berty under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Atheme IRC Services and Berty with Docker?

Atheme IRC Services: check the project docs for container support. Berty: check the project docs for container support.

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