The Lounge
Self-hosted web IRC client.
Description from awesome-selfhosted (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Still maintained? Yes: 21 commits in the last 90 days, latest release v4.5.2 (Jul 2026).
At a glance
The Lounge quick facts
- Health score
- 85/100 GOOD
- Stars
- 6,361
- Last commit
- yesterday (Oct 2026)
- Latest release
- v4.5.2, Jul 2026
- Licence
- MIT
Top alternatives to The Lounge
In its own words
The project's README opens: "To learn more about configuration, usage and features of The Lounge, take a look at the website."
Why it ranks here
Health score explained
The Lounge scores 85/100, #4 of 11 in Communication - IRC: 21 commits in the last 90 days earn 24.5 of 35 points, the latest release (v4.5.2, 4 months ago) earns 25.0 of 25, 6,361 stars add 15.2 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 commit activity, worth 10.5 more points.
Recomputed nightly from the GitHub API. How the score is calculated.
- Commit activity biggest shortfall 24.5 / 35
21 commits in 90 days (30+ scores full marks)
- Release recency 25.0 / 25
v4.5.2 released 4 months ago
- Stars 15.2 / 20
6.4k 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
- 21
- Last 90 days
- 125
- Last 12 months
- yesterday
- Last push
Ranked #4 of 11 tools in Communication - IRC by health , between Ergo (#3) and ZNC (#5) .
Details
| Licence | MIT |
| Platforms | Nodejs, Docker |
| Latest release | v4.5.2 · 4 months ago |
| Stars | 6,361 |
| Open issues | 253 |
| Docker | Yes |
| Repository | thelounge/thelounge ↗ |
The Lounge vs its top 5 alternatives
Active tools that share a category with The Lounge (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 (this tool) | 85 | 6.4k | MIT | yesterday |
| ZNC | 58 | 2.1k | Apache-2.0 | 2 days ago |
| UnrealIRCd | 56 | 527 | GPL-2.0 | 7 days ago |
The Lounge: common questions
Is The Lounge still maintained?
The Lounge had 21 commits in the last 90 days and its last push was yesterday; the latest tagged release, v4.5.2, is from 4 months ago. Repoly recomputes this nightly.
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