BitlBee vs The Lounge
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?
Compare BitlBee with
choose an app… Chatwoot SimpleX Chat Etherpad Centrifugo Screego Typebot Berty Mumble Papercups
Compare The Lounge with
choose an app… Plane Rocket.Chat Mattermost Chatwoot Focalboard Zulip Super Productivity Wekan SimpleX Chat Etherpad OpenProject Habitica Self-Hosted Tinode Element Web Planka Leantime Centrifugo Screego Typebot git-bug Let's Chat Kanboard Berty Mumble Kaneo Matterbridge ejabberd Papercups Taskwarrior Zammad WorkAdventure Dendrite Soketi Remark42 Isso FreeSWITCH qTox MiroTalk Synapse Ferdium FreeScout Telegram Bot API Server Rustpad Cinny Asterisk WeeChat Ergo Converse.js irssi Openfire Quicksy Bridge Kamailio Cusdis Tox Stoat Dino Nheko AnyCable Chitchatter Live Helper Chat Conduit Spacebar Nextcloud Talk ZNC Indico Movim RetroShare SIPCAPTURE Homer Peer-calls mautrix-telegram Routr GlobaLeaks openSIPS mautrix Databag Galène InspIRCd Candy Toxic Hyphanet Convos IRC FusionPBX soju KiwiIRC Glowing Bear Bonfire Pretalx Delta Chat Notifo SimpleX Briar Quassel IRC OTS matrix-commander Mumble Web Comentario ngIRCd Miaou Session Nextcloud Talk Signaling Server UnrealIRCd MiroTalk C2C matrix-appservice-irc Linphone Chatmail Relay Hookshot Atheme IRC Services Maunium Sticker Picker Spectrum 2 Shhh Gamja Jami Server Bridge Mollysocket Anope PushBits Comm Heisenbridge Slixmpp Ferdium Server Solanum Wesh Network Draupnir baibot matrix-media-repo Charybdis IRCd Zusam Cactus Comments ircd-hybrid Scuttlebutt Room Robust IRC Flexisip SAMA Biboumi Hebbot ircu2 Libervia Jami YunoHost Mail Relay 3CX ARN-Messager Freepbx GNUnet Groupboard MailBag Mailman3 Mailing List Manager Mlmmj Web Peachpub PrivMX WebMail SIP3 TrueConf Wazo Yeti-Switch
Feature BitlBee The Lounge Category Chat & Communication Chat & Communication License GPL-2.0 MIT Language C TypeScript Setup difficulty Medium Easy Min. RAM 32 MB 256 MB Deployment bare-metal, source docker, binary, source GitHub stars ★ 644 ★ 6,309 First released 2002 2014 Replaces Pidgin IRCCloud, Slack
Why pick each one
Choose BitlBee if… Released under the GPL-2.0 license Written in C Tiny footprint — runs in 32 MB RAM BitlBee details Choose The Lounge if… Great IRC experience in the browser Multi-user support The Lounge details
Frequently asked questions Is BitlBee or The Lounge better? The Lounge is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider BitlBee if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are BitlBee and The Lounge free and open-source? Yes. BitlBee is licensed under GPL-2.0 and The Lounge under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run BitlBee and The Lounge with Docker? BitlBee: check the project docs for container support. The Lounge: yes.