The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of notable 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 BeeBEEP BeeBEEP Protocol Marco Mastroddi 2010 5.8.6 () C++ and Qt BORGChat Ionut Cioflan 2002 BriarBramble ProtocolBriarproject.org20181.4.19 () Java iChat Bonjour IM Protocol Apple Inc. 2002 6.0.1 (1002) () Likely Objective-C iptux Windows Messenger service Jally, ManPT, others 2008 0.51 () Miranda NG Windows Messenger service Roland Rabien 2000 0.96.1 () C/C++ Pidgin Bonjour IM Protocol Mark Spencer, others 1998 2.14.12 () C qTox Tox Protocol Tux3 ? 1.17.6 () C++ and Qt
Operating system support The operating systems the messengers can run on without emulators or compatibility layers. +ClientWindowsMac OSLinuxAndroidiOSBSDOtherBeeBEEP Raspberry OSBORGChat Briar iChat iptux Miranda NG Pidgin FreeBSD NetBSD OpenBSD Solaris Illumos qTox FreeBSD
Features
+ Information on what features each of the clients supportToolkits or SDKsPrivate messagesPrivate chatPublic chatMessage boardEncryptionFile transferUnicode (UTF-8)Message filtrationGraphical smileysMessage loggingWhiteboardTerminal Service CompatibilityUser base in Active DirectoryServerless (No server required) BeeBEEP BORGChat Briar iChat 1 iptux Miranda NG qTox
Note 1: Using Apple's Bonjour protocol
See also Comparison of cross-platform instant messaging clients Comparison of instant messaging protocols Comparison of IRC clients LAN messenger Windows Messenger service
References