Comparison of LAN messengers

The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of LAN messengers.

General information

Basic general information about the LAN messengers: creator/company, license/price, among others.

Protocol Author, creator First public release date Latest stable version Cost (USD) Software license Programming language
AChat ? Michal Hruby 2005 beta 7 (v0.150) (January 24, 2007) Free[1] GNU GPL Delphi, C# version begun
Akeni LAN Messenger Akeni Network Protocol Akeni 2002 1.2.118 (May 22, 2014) Non-free, shareware $16.95 Proprietary C++
Bit Chat Bit Chat Protocol Technitium 2011 4.5.1 (September 24, 2016) Free[2] GNU GPLv3 C#
Bopup Messenger Bopup IM protocol B Labs 2001 6.8.3 (June 14, 2016) Non-free, shareware $12.90 + server (volume licensing available) Proprietary C++
BORGChat ? Ionut Cioflan 2002 v1.0.0 b438 (March 31, 2007 (2007-03-31)) [±] Free[3] Freeware ?
DeskAlerts ? Softomate 2007 4.0 Non-free, commercial $1.00 + server[4] Proprietary ?
iChat Bonjour IM Protocol Apple Inc. 2003 5.0.3 (745), (April 26, 2010) Non-free, bundled with OS Proprietary Likely Objective-C
iptux Windows Messenger service Jally, ManPT, others 2008 0.51 (November 20, 2009) Free[5] GNU GPL ?
LinPopUp Windows Messenger service Jean-Marc Jacquet 2000 1.2.0 (Debian, April 7, 2008) Free[6] GNU GPL C
Miranda IM[7][8] Windows Messenger service Roland Rabien 2000 0.10.56 (August 12, 2016) Free GNU GPL C/C++
Net-C ? DGtalize 2008 0.2.0 (May 15, 2010) Free[9] GNU GPL Java
Pichat ? Piratson Technologies 2002 0.4.2 b74 (March 31, 2011) Free[10] Freeware C++
Pidgin[11] ? Mark Spencer, others 1998 2.10.9 (February 2, 2014) Free GNU GPL C
PopNote ? K5HUM 2003 3.6 (July 1, 2009) Free[12] Freeware HotBasic
Qualia LAN Messenger LAN Messenger protocol Qualia Technologies 2010 1.2.37 (November 10, 2016) Free[13] GNU GPL C++
Squiggle LAN Messenger ? Overroot 2010 3.3 (March 16, 2013) Free[14] Freeware C#
TSR LAN Messenger ? TSR Software 2012 1.6.6.460 (April 11, 2014) Free[15] Proprietary C#
Winpopup LAN Messenger Secure Winpopup LAN Messenger protocol Fomine Software 2002 5.5.10 (June 16, 2016) Non-free, shareware $14.95, first 3 are free[16][17] Proprietary ?
BeeBEEP BeeBEEP Protocol [18] Marco Mastroddi 2010 3.0.7 (August 11, 2016) Free QPL C++ and Qt
s!mpL3 LAN Messenger ? Antonis Giatilis 2008 2.9.8.8 (September 30, 2015) Free[19] Freeware AutoIt

Operating system support

The operating systems the messengers can run on without emulators or compatibility layers.

Windows OS X Linux BSD Unix
AChat Yes No No No No
Akeni LAN Messenger Yes No Yes No No
Bit Chat Yes No Yes No No
Bopup Messenger Yes No No No No
BORGChat Yes No No No No
DeskAlerts Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
iChat No Yes No No No
iptux No No Yes No No
LinPopUp No No Yes No No
Miranda IM Yes No No No No
Net-C Yes Yes Yes Yes No
Pichat Yes No Yes Yes No
PopNote Yes No No No No
Qualia LAN Messenger Yes Yes Yes No Yes
Squiggle LAN Messenger Yes No No No No
TSR LAN Messenger Yes No No No No
WinMessenger Yes No No No No
Winpopup LAN Messenger Yes No No No No
BeeBEEP Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
s!mpL3 LAN Messenger Yes No No No No

Features

Information on what features each of the clients support.

Toolkits or SDKs Private messages Private chat Public chat Message board Encryption File transfer Unicode (UTF-8) Message filtration Graphical smileys Message logging Whiteboard Terminal Service Compatibility User base in Active Directory Serverless (No server required)
AChat No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes No No Yes No No No Yes
Akeni LAN Messenger No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes
Bit Chat No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes No No No Yes
Bopup Messenger W32 Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No No Yes Yes No Yes Yes No
BORGChat No Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes No Yes Yes Yes No No No Yes
iChat 1 No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes No No No No No No No No
iptux No Yes Yes No No No Yes Yes No No No No No No Yes
LinPopUp No Yes Yes Yes No Yes No No No No No No No No Yes
Miranda IM ? Yes ? ? ? ? Yes Yes ? Yes Yes ? ? ? Yes
Net-C No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes No Yes No No No No Yes
Pichat W32 + Linux Yes Yes Yes No No Yes No Yes Yes Yes No Yes No Yes
PopNote No Yes Yes Yes No Yes No No No No Yes No No No Yes
Qualia LAN Messenger No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No No No Yes
TSR LAN Messenger No Yes Yes Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes Yes No No No Yes
WinMessenger No Yes No No No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes
Winpopup LAN Messenger W32 Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No No Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes
BeeBEEP No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes
s!mpL3 LAN Messenger No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes No No No Yes

Note 1: Using Apple's Bonjour protocol

See also

References

  1. ↑ SourceForget AChat: GNU General Public License
  2. ↑ Bit Chat: Download
  3. ↑ Softpedia BORGChat: Freeware
  4. ↑ Deskalerts: Alert software
  5. ↑ Freshmeat iptux: GPL 2+
  6. ↑ SourceForget LinPopUp-2: GNU General Public License
  7. ↑ Miranda able to work as LAN messenger but only in LAN with IM server, for example through OpenFire
  8. ↑ Miranda IM LAN plugins, may be old/buggy though
  9. ↑ SourceForget Net-C: GNU General Public License
  10. ↑ Brothersoft Pichat: Freeware
  11. ↑ Pidgin allows LAN chat over Bonjour protocol
  12. ↑ Softpedia PopNote: Freeware
  13. ↑ GitHub LAN Messenger: Freeware and Open Source
  14. ↑ Squiggle LAN Messenger: Freeware
  15. ↑ TSR LAN Messenger: Free for personal use
  16. ↑ The first three Winpopup LAN Messenger are free
  17. ↑ Winpopup Lan Messenger to Abandon Software Activation
  18. ↑ BeeBEEP on Sourceforge
  19. ↑ s!mpL3 LAN Messenger: Freeware
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