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 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BeeBEEP [1] | BeeBEEP Protocol | Marco Mastroddi | 2010 | 4.0.0 (August 1, 2017) | Free | QPL | C++ and Qt |
| Bit Chat | Bit Chat Protocol | Technitium | 2011 | 4.5.1 (September 24, 2016) | Free[2] | GNU GPLv3 | C# |
| BORGChat | ? | Ionut Cioflan | 2002 | v1.0.0 b438 (March 31, 2007) [±] | Free[3] | Freeware | ? |
| 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[4] | GNU GPL | ? |
| LinPopUp | Windows Messenger service | Jean-Marc Jacquet | 2000 | 1.2.0 (Debian, April 7, 2008) | Free[5] | GNU GPL | C |
| Miranda IM | Windows Messenger service | Roland Rabien | 2000 | 0.10.56 (August 12, 2016) | Free | GNU GPL | C/C++ |
| Pidgin[6] | ? | Mark Spencer, others | 1998 | 2.11.0 (June 20, 2016) | Free | GNU GPL | C |
| Qualia LAN Messenger | LAN Messenger protocol | Qualia Technologies | 2010 | 1.2.37 (November 10, 2016) | Free[7] | GNU GPL | C++ |
Operating system support
The operating systems the messengers can run on without emulators or compatibility layers.
| Windows | OS X | Linux | BSD | Unix | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BeeBEEP | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Bit Chat | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
| BORGChat | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| 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 |
| Qualia LAN Messenger | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
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) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BeeBEEP | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Bit Chat | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| 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 |
| Qualia LAN Messenger | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
Note 1: Using Apple's Bonjour protocol
See also
- Comparison of instant messaging clients
- Comparison of instant messaging protocols
- Comparison of Internet Relay Chat clients
- LAN messenger
- Windows Messenger service
References
- ^ "BeeBEEP (Secure Lan Messenger)". SourceForge.net. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
- ^ "Bit Chat". Technitium. Retrieved 9 December 2016.
- ^ "BORGChat". Softpedia. Retrieved 9 December 2016.
- ^ "iptux". freecode.com. Retrieved 9 December 2016.
- ^ "A Linux Enhanced port of Winpopup". SourceForge.net. Retrieved 9 December 2016.
- ^ "Use Pidgin for Chatting And Transferring Files on Local Network Without Internet Connection". ubuntubuzz.com. Retrieved 9 December 2016.
- ^ "An opensource LAN messenger". GitHub. Retrieved 9 December 2016.