Quassel IRC
Distributed IRC client, meaning that one (or multiple) client(s) can attach to and detach from a central core.
Description from awesome-selfhosted (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Still maintained? Slowing: no commits in the last 90 days, last push Jun 2026.
At a glance
Quassel IRC quick facts
- Health score
- 22/100 STALE
- Stars
- 792
- Last commit
- 4 months ago (Jun 2026)
- Latest release
- 0.14.0, Jan 2022
- Licence
- GPL-2.0
Top alternatives to Quassel IRC
In its own words
The project's README opens: "Quassel IRC is a modern, cross-platform, distributed IRC client, meaning that one (or multiple) client(s) can attach to and detach from a central core -- much like the popular combination of screen and a text-based IRC client such as WeeChat, but graphical."
Why it ranks here
Health score explained
Quassel IRC scores 22/100, #10 of 11 in Communication - IRC: 0 commits in the last 90 days earn 0.0 of 35 points, the latest release (0.14.0, 4.8 years ago) earns 0.0 of 25, 792 stars add 11.6 of 20, an active, unarchived repository keeps 10 and no advertised Docker image leaves the final 10 unclaimed. That places it in the stale band (below 40). The biggest shortfall is commit activity, worth 35.0 more points.
Recomputed nightly from the GitHub API. How the score is calculated.
- Commit activity biggest shortfall 0.0 / 35
0 commits in 90 days (30+ scores full marks)
- Release recency 0.0 / 25
0.14.0 released 4.8 years ago
- Stars 11.6 / 20
792 stars on GitHub (logarithmic)
- Not archived 10.0 / 10
Repository is active
- Docker support 0.0 / 10
No Docker support advertised
Commit activity
- 0
- Last 90 days
- 1
- Last 12 months
- 4 months ago
- Last push
Ranked #10 of 11 tools in Communication - IRC by health , between Kiwi IRC (#9) and Robust IRC (#11) .
Details
| Licence | GPL-2.0 |
| Platforms | C++ |
| Latest release | 0.14.0 · 4.8 years ago |
| Stars | 792 |
| Open issues | 0 |
| Docker | Not advertised |
| Repository | quassel/quassel ↗ |
Quassel IRC vs its top 5 alternatives
Active tools that share a category with Quassel IRC (Communication - IRC), scored on the same five terms.
| Tool | Health | Stars | Licence | Last commit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weechat | 94 | 3.4k | GPL-3.0 | yesterday |
| InspIRCd | 93 | 1.4k | GPL-2.0 | 6 days ago |
| Ergo | 86 | 3.4k | MIT | 8 days ago |
| The Lounge | 85 | 6.4k | MIT | yesterday |
| Quassel IRC (this tool) | 22 | 792 | GPL-2.0 | 4 months ago |
| Robust IRC | 19 | 194 | BSD-3-Clause | 5 months ago |
Quassel IRC: common questions
Is Quassel IRC still maintained?
Quassel IRC had 0 commits in the last 90 days and its last push was 4 months ago; the latest tagged release, 0.14.0, is from 4.8 years ago. Repoly recomputes this nightly.