InspIRCd
Modular IRC server written in C++ for Linux, BSD, Windows, and macOS.
Description from awesome-selfhosted (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Still maintained? Yes: 85 commits in the last 90 days, latest release v4.12.1 (Sep 2026).
At a glance
InspIRCd quick facts
- Health score
- 93/100 GOOD
- Stars
- 1,357
- Last commit
- 6 days ago (Oct 2026)
- Latest release
- v4.12.1, Sep 2026
- Licence
- GPL-2.0
Top alternatives to InspIRCd
In its own words
The project's README opens: "The master branch contains the latest unstable development code. If you are running a server then you probably want to use a v4 release for now. You can obtain this from the releases page or by running git checkout $(git describe --abbrev=0 --tags insp4) if you are installing from Git."
Why it ranks here
Health score explained
InspIRCd scores 93/100, #2 of 11 in Communication - IRC: 85 commits in the last 90 days earn 35.0 of 35 points, the latest release (v4.12.1, 1 month ago) earns 25.0 of 25, 1,357 stars add 12.5 of 20, an active, unarchived repository keeps 10 and Docker support adds the final 10. That places it in the good band (70 and above). The biggest shortfall is star count, worth 7.5 more points.
Recomputed nightly from the GitHub API. How the score is calculated.
- Commit activity 35.0 / 35
85 commits in 90 days (30+ scores full marks)
- Release recency 25.0 / 25
v4.12.1 released 1 month ago
- Stars biggest shortfall 12.5 / 20
1.4k stars on GitHub (logarithmic)
- Not archived 10.0 / 10
Repository is active
- Docker support 10.0 / 10
Docker image or Compose file available
Commit activity
- 85
- Last 90 days
- 304
- Last 12 months
- 6 days ago
- Last push
Ranked #2 of 11 tools in Communication - IRC by health , between Weechat (#1) and Ergo (#3) .
Details
| Licence | GPL-2.0 |
| Platforms | C++, Docker |
| Latest release | v4.12.1 · 1 month ago |
| Stars | 1,357 |
| Open issues | 112 |
| Docker | Yes |
| Repository | inspircd/inspircd ↗ |
InspIRCd vs its top 5 alternatives
Active tools that share a category with InspIRCd (Communication - IRC), scored on the same five terms.
| Tool | Health | Stars | Licence | Last commit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weechat | 94 | 3.4k | GPL-3.0 | yesterday |
| InspIRCd (this tool) | 93 | 1.4k | GPL-2.0 | 6 days ago |
| Ergo | 86 | 3.4k | MIT | 8 days ago |
| The Lounge | 85 | 6.4k | MIT | yesterday |
| ZNC | 58 | 2.1k | Apache-2.0 | 2 days ago |
| UnrealIRCd | 56 | 527 | GPL-2.0 | 7 days ago |
InspIRCd: common questions
Is InspIRCd still maintained?
InspIRCd had 85 commits in the last 90 days and its last push was 6 days ago; the latest tagged release, v4.12.1, is from 1 month ago. Repoly recomputes this nightly.
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