{"slug": "pidgin", "name": "Pidgin", "category": "communication", "category_name": "Email and chat", "description": "", "recommenders": 10, "commenters": 16, "warners": 2, "score": 7.82, "rising": -3.27, "first": "2025-11-15", "latest": "2026-10-21", "why": "Pidgin was really top tier software. It was my favourite piece of software for a long time.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 10, "neutral": 4, "compare": 0, "warn": 2}, "spark": [1, 2, 1, 2, 0, 0, 1, 0, 3, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "Pidgin was really top tier software. It was my favourite piece of software for a long time.", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": "pidgin.im", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://pidgin.im", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Pidgin"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 782345024, "item_id": 48896564, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48896564", "by": "rw_grim", "date": "2026-07-13", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Pidgin is still here although I'm behind on the monthly updates", "excerpt": "Pidgin is still here although I'm behind on the monthly updates... https://discourse.imfreedom.org/tag/state-of-the-bird/1", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Death of the Status Update: Why 55% of Americans Stopped Posting on Social Media"}, {"id": 782158673, "item_id": 48884917, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48884917", "by": "fragmede", "date": "2026-07-12", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Pidgin had it so good.", "excerpt": "Pidgin had it so good. Have you tried Beeper? https://www.beeper.com/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Death of the Status Update: Why 55% of Americans Stopped Posting on Social Media"}, {"id": 781580496, "item_id": 48848781, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48848781", "by": "Bender", "date": "2026-07-09", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Adding to this there is pidgin-otr", "excerpt": "Adding to this there is pidgin-otr and python-potr. For IRC there is irssi-otr. There was weechat-otr but I think it may have gone unsupported as their script did not work in python3. There is also ejabberd [0] that has OMEMO [1] preferred over OTR and PGP and supports many to many E2EE. Someone tried to MitM Jabber, discussion here on HN [2]. [0] - https://ejabberd.im/ [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OMEMO [2] -", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0 \u2013 Breyer: \"Our children lose out\""}, {"id": 779916752, "item_id": 48744797, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48744797", "by": "anthk", "date": "2026-07-01", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "you can still use Pidgin and libpurple plugins to connect to a huge array of protocols", "excerpt": "It's still there, at IRC/Usenet/some niche forums. Replace phreaking with maybe some mesh networks and ways to connect computers without calling an ISP. There are still niche blogs and even phlogs. And you can still use Pidgin and libpurple plugins to connect to a huge array of protocols. Ditto with core Biltbee or Bitlbee+libpurple allowing you to use any IRC client (even the ones without TLS for DOS and Win9X) to c", "context": "", "use_case": "multi-protocol chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Internet I Grew Up with Doesn't Exist Anymore"}, {"id": 773564032, "item_id": 48347752, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48347752", "by": "jjordan", "date": "2026-05-31", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "apps like Pidgin that would bring multiple chat clients together under one interface", "excerpt": "How did we let this happen? We used to have open protocols, apps like Pidgin that would bring multiple chat clients together under one interface, IRC, Skype P2P, etc. etc. Was it spammers that caused this mass migration to ever more closed platforms?", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 790888884, "item_id": 49430555, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49430555", "by": "ezst", "date": "2026-08-25", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "We had a bit of that with pidgin 8-or-so years ago.", "excerpt": "> Matrix is a much better conceptual fit for the IRC/Slack-like use case Debatable, this mostly boils down to the client design choices and priorities, and has little to nothing to do with the protocol. Someone came-up with a metaphor I like to illustrate it: the banquet and the barbecue\u00b9. XMPP has \"barbecue\"-style clients like Conversations, Kaidan, Dino?, and other that are rather \"banquet\"-style like Gajim, Fluux,", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Jabber/XMPP: 25 Years of Digital Independence"}]}], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["multi-protocol chat", "chat client", "multi-network chat", "free software chat client", "multi-protocol chat client"], "compared": [{"slug": "beeper", "name": "Beeper", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "trillian", "name": "Trillian", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [{"id": 752893264, "item_id": 47055829, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47055829", "by": "rw_grim", "date": "2026-02-17", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "We never went anywhere and have support for modern protocols", "excerpt": "We never went anywhere and have support for modern protocols... See https://discourse.imfreedom.org/tag/news and pidgin.im/plugins/", "context": "", "use_case": "multi-protocol chat client", "switched_from": "", "story": "Meta to retire messenger desktop app and messenger.com in April 2026"}, {"id": 751232816, "item_id": 46952051, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46952051", "by": "rw_grim", "date": "2026-02-09", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "we (Pidgin) just decided that Zulip was going to be the next protocol we were going to add support for", "excerpt": "This is great to hear and ironically we (Pidgin) just decided that Zulip was going to be the next protocol we were going to add support for just barely 24 hours ago before all this Discord nonsense! https://discourse.imfreedom.org/t/protocols-to-support/234/12", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month"}, {"id": 748579216, "item_id": 46786201, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46786201", "by": "rw_grim", "date": "2026-01-27", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "We (Pidgin) are still around", "excerpt": "We (Pidgin) are still around.. You may be interested in our state of the bird posts to see what we've been up to. https://discourse.imfreedom.org/tag/state-of-the-bird", "context": "", "use_case": "Universal chat client", "switched_from": "", "story": "France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc."}, {"id": 745274080, "item_id": 46579630, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46579630", "by": "rw_grim", "date": "2026-01-11", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Pidgin is still here and does work (to some level) with all of those protocols", "excerpt": "Pidgin is still here and does work (to some level) with all of those protocols. https://pidgin.im/plugins/?publisher=all&query=&type=Protocol We've been working on our next major release for a long time now to better support modern protocols. But as an unfunded Open Source project it's hard to get things done quickly when it's a \"free time\" only project.", "context": "Pidgin developer, unfunded open source project", "use_case": "Multi-protocol chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great"}, {"id": 739185120, "item_id": 46199070, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46199070", "by": "rw_grim", "date": "2025-12-08", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "We (Pidgin) probably could have kept that code working if we had access to a server.", "excerpt": "We (Pidgin) probably could have kept that code working if we had access to a server. But we didn't, and it bitrot, so we've since archived it to https://github.com/pidgin/retro-prpl/tree/main/sametime", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "IBM to acquire Confluent"}], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47052007", "title": "Meta to retire messenger desktop app and messenger.com in April 2026", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50181137", "title": "The No Kings Takedown Is Why You Shouldn't Rent Your Megaphone from Zuck", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49421536", "title": "Jabber/XMPP: 25 Years of Digital Independence", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48879902", "title": "Death of the Status Update: Why 55% of Americans Stopped Posting on Social Media", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47034801", "title": "Running My Own XMPP Server", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46566465", "title": "I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great", "mentions": 2}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 2, "neutral": 1}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-02": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 3}, "2026-08": {"warn": 2}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"neutral": 2}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 802917328, "item_id": 50182333, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50182333", "by": "mooreds", "date": "2026-10-21", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "", "excerpt": "Jabber would like a word: https://jabber.org/ But seriously, there's zero incentive for the folks building these clients to make them interoperable. In fact there may even be disincentive, since the more folks they have on their platform, the more valuable the platform is.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The No Kings Takedown Is Why You Shouldn't Rent Your Megaphone from Zuck"}, {"id": 802914496, "item_id": 50182156, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50182156", "by": "ninalanyon", "date": "2026-10-21", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used to use a multiprotocol client, Pidgin, to chat with people on a couple of different platforms.", "excerpt": "That's why we need to separate the protocol from the UI. There is absolutely no good reason why the different platforms should disallow communication with each other. I used to use a multiprotocol client, Pidgin, to chat with people on a couple of different platforms. But of course now a lot of chat is on things like Facebook and Google Chat which are supported only by plugins. But even that is still not enough becau", "context": "", "use_case": "multi-protocol chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "The No Kings Takedown Is Why You Shouldn't Rent Your Megaphone from Zuck"}, {"id": 791933425, "item_id": 49495839, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49495839", "by": "rw_grim", "date": "2026-08-30", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "If you want to use Pidgin with it", "excerpt": "If you want to use Pidgin with it, check out https://github.com/pidgin/retro-prpl", "context": "", "use_case": "chat client", "switched_from": "", "story": "Open Oscar Server: open-source server compatible with AIM and ICQ clients"}, {"id": 790983920, "item_id": 49436495, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49436495", "by": "selfhoster1312", "date": "2026-08-25", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "", "excerpt": "Yes, but i haven't met someone who uses Pidgin in more than 5 years. Still, the pidgin team appears to be alive and their blog is always a good read! https://pidgin.im/post/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Jabber/XMPP: 25 Years of Digital Independence"}, {"id": 790888884, "item_id": 49430555, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49430555", "by": "ezst", "date": "2026-08-25", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "We had a bit of that with pidgin 8-or-so years ago.", "excerpt": "> Matrix is a much better conceptual fit for the IRC/Slack-like use case Debatable, this mostly boils down to the client design choices and priorities, and has little to nothing to do with the protocol. Someone came-up with a metaphor I like to illustrate it: the banquet and the barbecue\u00b9. XMPP has \"barbecue\"-style clients like Conversations, Kaidan, Dino?, and other that are rather \"banquet\"-style like Gajim, Fluux,", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Jabber/XMPP: 25 Years of Digital Independence"}, {"id": 782345024, "item_id": 48896564, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48896564", "by": "rw_grim", "date": "2026-07-13", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Pidgin is still here although I'm behind on the monthly updates", "excerpt": "Pidgin is still here although I'm behind on the monthly updates... https://discourse.imfreedom.org/tag/state-of-the-bird/1", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Death of the Status Update: Why 55% of Americans Stopped Posting on Social Media"}, {"id": 782158673, "item_id": 48884917, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48884917", "by": "fragmede", "date": "2026-07-12", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Pidgin had it so good.", "excerpt": "Pidgin had it so good. Have you tried Beeper? https://www.beeper.com/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Death of the Status Update: Why 55% of Americans Stopped Posting on Social Media"}, {"id": 781580496, "item_id": 48848781, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48848781", "by": "Bender", "date": "2026-07-09", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Adding to this there is pidgin-otr", "excerpt": "Adding to this there is pidgin-otr and python-potr. For IRC there is irssi-otr. There was weechat-otr but I think it may have gone unsupported as their script did not work in python3. There is also ejabberd [0] that has OMEMO [1] preferred over OTR and PGP and supports many to many E2EE. Someone tried to MitM Jabber, discussion here on HN [2]. [0] - https://ejabberd.im/ [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OMEMO [2] -", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0 \u2013 Breyer: \"Our children lose out\""}, {"id": 779916752, "item_id": 48744797, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48744797", "by": "anthk", "date": "2026-07-01", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "you can still use Pidgin and libpurple plugins to connect to a huge array of protocols", "excerpt": "It's still there, at IRC/Usenet/some niche forums. Replace phreaking with maybe some mesh networks and ways to connect computers without calling an ISP. There are still niche blogs and even phlogs. And you can still use Pidgin and libpurple plugins to connect to a huge array of protocols. Ditto with core Biltbee or Bitlbee+libpurple allowing you to use any IRC client (even the ones without TLS for DOS and Win9X) to c", "context": "", "use_case": "multi-protocol chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Internet I Grew Up with Doesn't Exist Anymore"}, {"id": 773564032, "item_id": 48347752, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48347752", "by": "jjordan", "date": "2026-05-31", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "apps like Pidgin that would bring multiple chat clients together under one interface", "excerpt": "How did we let this happen? We used to have open protocols, apps like Pidgin that would bring multiple chat clients together under one interface, IRC, Skype P2P, etc. etc. Was it spammers that caused this mass migration to ever more closed platforms?", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions"}, {"id": 768635856, "item_id": 48039741, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48039741", "by": "rw_grim", "date": "2026-05-06", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "purple3/pidgin3 (still in development) only supports for keyrings", "excerpt": "For the full reasoning see this page https://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/PlainTextPasswords which is now back online. It was accidentally broken in a recent server migration. That said, purple3/pidgin3 (still in development) only supports for keyrings and doesn't try to do any password management on its own even though password managers fall into the \"Store a password(s) behind a password\" as detailed on the above page.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Security Through Obscurity Is Not Bad"}, {"id": 752893440, "item_id": 47055840, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47055840", "by": "rw_grim", "date": "2026-02-17", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "well now you know ;) https://pidgin.im/plugins/", "excerpt": "well now you know ;) https://pidgin.im/plugins/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Meta to retire messenger desktop app and messenger.com in April 2026"}, {"id": 752866080, "item_id": 47054130, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47054130", "by": "footy", "date": "2026-02-17", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Pidgin was really top tier software. It was my favourite piece of software for a long time.", "excerpt": "I use Beeper now, but Pidgin was really top tier software. It was my favourite piece of software for a long time.", "context": "", "use_case": "multi-network chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Meta to retire messenger desktop app and messenger.com in April 2026"}, {"id": 752643328, "item_id": 47040208, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47040208", "by": "rw_grim", "date": "2026-02-16", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "", "excerpt": "We're still here... https://discourse.imfreedom.org/tag/news", "context": "", "use_case": "Chat client", "switched_from": "", "story": "Running My Own XMPP Server"}, {"id": 752570512, "item_id": 47035657, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47035657", "by": "slmkbh", "date": "2026-02-16", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used Pidgin for both, wonderful times", "excerpt": "Google Talk and Facebook Messenger both used to be XMPP, and I used Pidgin for both, wonderful times...", "context": "", "use_case": "multi-protocol chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Running My Own XMPP Server"}, {"id": 748028993, "item_id": 46751812, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46751812", "by": "globular-toast", "date": "2026-01-25", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I want something like Pidgin.", "excerpt": "Why would I use this closed source program instead of another closed source program. I don't trust some random company from Latvia any more than I trust Meta. We need this interop to be available for free software clients. I want something like Pidgin.", "context": "", "use_case": "free software chat client", "switched_from": "", "story": "BirdyChat becomes first European chat app that is interoperable with WhatsApp"}, {"id": 745274368, "item_id": 46579648, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46579648", "by": "rw_grim", "date": "2026-01-11", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "We've never left. https://pidgin.im/", "excerpt": "We've never left. https://pidgin.im/", "context": "", "use_case": "Multi-protocol chat client", "switched_from": "", "story": "I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great"}, {"id": 739163824, "item_id": 46197739, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46197739", "by": "jhallenworld", "date": "2025-12-08", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "they allowed you to use open-source Pidgin to connect to the Domino servers", "excerpt": "That's awesome. Before ~2007 they allowed you to use open-source Pidgin to connect to the Domino servers. A friend of mine and I used it to make a bot: if you sametimed me, you got Zork. It reminds me of another IBM IT rule: they wanted your chat history (and email) older than two years to be all deleted for legal liability reasons. It was important to save your sametime chat history (an XML file) and export your ema", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "IBM to acquire Confluent"}, {"id": 737732128, "item_id": 46108258, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46108258", "by": "Yokolos", "date": "2025-12-01", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I miss the days when I could start Pidgin and it'd automatically log into every single service I use", "excerpt": "I miss the days when I could start Pidgin and it'd automatically log into every single service I use, and I could chat with anybody regardless of which service they were on. I didn't need half a dozen different apps running just to chat. It felt like a utopia compared to what we have today.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "WhatsApp will become interoperable with other messaging apps in Europe"}, {"id": 737728800, "item_id": 46108050, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46108050", "by": "pogue", "date": "2025-12-01", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Pidgin still has lots of plugins for many different chat protocols", "excerpt": "I'm sick of having so many different messaging apps. Everyone is using a different one, so you have to download another app, signup for something, figure out how to configure it & etc etc. We need a modern Trillian or Pidgin that just connects to and talks to everything. To be fair, Pidgin still has lots of plugins for many different chat protocols. I don't know how well maintained they are and if they work consisten", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "WhatsApp will become interoperable with other messaging apps in Europe"}, {"id": 737061489, "item_id": 46066343, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46066343", "by": "pabs3", "date": "2025-11-26", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use one for Pidgin", "excerpt": "KDE Wayland has tray icons for X11 apps, I use one for Pidgin.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "KDE Plasma 6.8 Will Go Wayland-Exclusive in Dropping X11 Session Support"}, {"id": 735006097, "item_id": 45937881, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45937881", "by": "jlarocco", "date": "2025-11-15", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "you could use 3rd party apps like Trillian and Pidgin instead of the official clients", "excerpt": "I don't know. I use the Linux and Windows clients, and to me they feel the same. They're not great, but I wouldn't say one is worse. In fact, I'd say all of the modern chat apps are pretty much equally terrible. They're all proprietary, bloated, web apps with terrible clients that people only use because they have to for work. Chat apps peaked in the early 2000s when the protocols were more open and you could use 3rd", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Unofficial Microsoft Teams client for Linux"}]}