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ZNC vs Quassel IRC: catalog facts
ZNC	Quassel IRC

Best for: IRC users who want a persistent connection and scrollback across devices	Best for: IRC users who want a persistent connection and history with a graphical client
Free Free and open source under the Apache 2.0 license.	Free Free and open source under the GPL.
macOS, Linux, Self-hosted	Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, Self-hosted
Keeps IRC sessions alive while clients come and go Multiple users and multiple networks per user Web interface for configuration Module system with Perl and Python support	Core stays online and keeps history while clients disconnect Several clients can attach to the same core Graphical clients for Linux, Windows and macOS First-run wizard for setting up the core
Needs an always-on server to be useful One client connection is needed per IRC network Building from source requires CMake and a C++ toolchain	Running a core requires a server or always-on machine Stable releases are infrequent, with long gaps between them
Downloadable app, Self-hosted	Downloadable app, Self-hosted
Open source	Open source
License: Apache-2.0	License: GPL-2.0
No account needed	No account needed
Not stated if it works offline	Not stated if it works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Sources for ZNC znc.in github.com/znc/znc Catalog checked September 24, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Sources for Quassel IRC quassel-irc.org github.com/quassel/quassel Catalog checked October 2, 2026

“Not stated” means we have not confirmed it. Features can vary by device and plan.