A chat server is a computer dedicated to providing the processing power to handle and maintain chatting and it users. For example, there are thousands of dedicated servers set up for IRC, each of these servers are considered a chat server.

Examples of chat servers

Many chat servers are available for creating a customized online chat room. Below are a few popular examples.

IRC chat servers

  • IRCd or IRC daemon - IRCd is an IRC chat server originally developed by Jarkko Oikarinen that spun off ircu (a daemon used for Undernet IRC networks) and other IRC daemons.
  • UnrealIRCd - One of the most widely-used open-source IRC server daemons that runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows.
  • InspIRCd - An IRC chat server developed from scratch for Linux, BSD, Windows, and macOS systems.

XMPP chat servers

  • Openfire - Openfire is a RTC (real time collaboration) server that uses XMPP (also called Jabber). It is trivial to set up and administer, but offers rock-solid security and performance.

Chat, Chat terms, Internet terms, Server