Cinny vs The Lounge

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted apps from related categories — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
FeatureCinnyThe Lounge
CategoryMatrix & XMPPChat & Communication
LicenseAGPL-3.0MIT
LanguageTypeScriptTypeScript
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM64 MB256 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metal, sourcedocker, binary, source
GitHub stars★ 3,826★ 6,309
First released20212014
ReplacesSlack, DiscordIRCCloud, Slack

Why pick each one

Choose Cinny if…

  • Lightweight to host
  • Attractive interface
Cinny details

Choose The Lounge if…

  • Great IRC experience in the browser
  • Multi-user support
The Lounge details

Frequently asked questions

Is Cinny or The Lounge better?

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

Are Cinny and The Lounge free and open-source?

Yes. Cinny is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and The Lounge under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Cinny and The Lounge with Docker?

Cinny: yes. The Lounge: yes.

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