ZNC
Advanced IRC bouncer.
Description from awesome-selfhosted (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Still maintained? Yes: 66 commits in the last 90 days.
At a glance
ZNC quick facts
- Health score
- 58/100 SLOWING
- Stars
- 2,128
- Last commit
- 2 days ago (Oct 2026)
- Latest release
- No tagged release
- Licence
- Apache-2.0
Top alternatives to ZNC
In its own words
The project's README opens: "SSL/TLS support: openssl 1.1.1 or later try installing openssl-dev, openssl-devel or libssl-dev * macOS: OpenSSL from Homebrew is preferred over system."
Why it ranks here
Health score explained
ZNC scores 58/100, #5 of 11 in Communication - IRC: 66 commits in the last 90 days earn 35.0 of 35 points, the absence of a tagged release forfeits all 25 release points, 2,128 stars add 13.3 of 20, an active, unarchived repository keeps 10 and no advertised Docker image leaves the final 10 unclaimed. That places it in the slowing band (40 to 69). The biggest shortfall is release recency, worth 25.0 more points.
Recomputed nightly from the GitHub API. How the score is calculated.
Health over time
- Commit activity 35.0 / 35
66 commits in 90 days (30+ scores full marks)
- Release recency biggest shortfall 0.0 / 25
No tagged release found
- Stars 13.3 / 20
2.1k stars on GitHub (logarithmic)
- Not archived 10.0 / 10
Repository is active
- Docker support 0.0 / 10
No Docker support advertised
Commit activity
- 66
- Last 90 days
- 186
- Last 12 months
- 2 days ago
- Last push
Ranked #5 of 11 tools in Communication - IRC by health , between The Lounge (#4) and UnrealIRCd (#6) .
Details
| Licence | Apache-2.0 |
| Platforms | C++, deb |
| Latest release | No tagged release |
| Stars | 2,128 |
| Open issues | 362 |
| Docker | Not advertised |
| Repository | znc/znc ↗ |
ZNC vs its top 5 alternatives
Active tools that share a category with ZNC (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 |
| ZNC (this tool) | 58 | 2.1k | Apache-2.0 | 2 days ago |
| UnrealIRCd | 56 | 527 | GPL-2.0 | 7 days ago |
ZNC: common questions
Is ZNC still maintained?
ZNC had 66 commits in the last 90 days and its last push was 2 days ago. Repoly recomputes this nightly.