Dev tools · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to Cascade Chat – A Hackable IRCv3 Client for macOS, Windows, and Linux
Hello HN! I'm Matt and today I'd like to show you Cascade Chat. One of my earliest internet experiences was with mIRC. I always admired its straightforward, pleasant UI and the way it wove a hackable core into the code. The way you could build on the visual and API layers of the underlying IRC client to me was fascinating software machinery. It was truly a client that you could build on top of. As my career has progressed, I moved away from Windows and adopted Linux as my daily driver. That was where I found HexChat, the closest thing I could find to mIRC many years later. While I really…
Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes.
- 1SB
Find information, resources and relevant links for 2mb.codes. This domain may be for sale.
2024 · 2mb.codes · its alternatives →
- 2
I spent the last few days building out a nicer ChatGPT-like interface to use Mistral 7B and Llama 3 fully within a browser (no deps and installs). I’ve used the WebLLM project by MLC AI for a while to interact with LLMs in the browser when handling sensitive data but I found their UI quite lacking for serious use so I built a much better interface around WebLLM. I’ve been using it as a therapist and coach. And it’s wonderful knowing that my personal information never leaves my local computer. Should work on Desktop with Chrome or Edge. Other browsers are adding WebGPU support as well - see…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 3IL
Hello HN, I want to share something that I worked on for quite a while as my side project - www.heahy.com an IRC like chat where you can share various media and even record yourself (using web MediaRecorder api). Here is a thread with short explanation on how it works: https://www.heahy.com/channel/homepage/thread/3900adb9e441a09abc757461 I am looking for any feedback and if you have any ideas, advice or questions I am eager to hear it here or on heahy!
2020 · its alternatives →
- 4
Foxchat▲275Best Intercom alternative for startups and indie hackers
Feb 2026 · foxchat.dev · its alternatives →
- 5SC
Hi HN, I wrote a custom SSH server in Go, give it a try. It uses your terminal user and SSH keys to authenticate implicitly. Instead of getting a shell, you get an IRC-style chatroom with everyone else. $ ssh chat.shazow.net If you're getting "Permission denied (publickey)", please use ssh-keygen to create a keypair. Instructions here: https://help.github.com/articles/generating-ssh-keys/ SSH is a really cool protocol; it's a lot like HTTP2. This is a demo of one thing you can do with it, but I plan to factor out the code into libraries that will let you build all…
2014 · its alternatives →
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- 7
Fluxer▲154Hey HN, and happy new year! I'm Hampus Kraft [1], a 22-year-old software developer nearing completion of my BSc in Computer Engineering at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. I've been working on Fluxer on and off for about 5 years, but recently decided to work on it full-time and see how far it could take me. Fluxer is an open source [2] communication platform for friends, groups, and communities (text, voice, and video). It aims for "modern chat app" feature coverage with a familiar UX, while being developed in the open and staying FOSS (AGPLv3). The codebase is largely written in…
Jan 2026 · fluxer.app · its alternatives →
- 8
- 9IC
Hi HN, Long-time IRC obsessive here (some of you may remember me from the privacy wars and the freenode drama). My commitment to the protocol never died, so I built IRC.com, a browser-based IRC client where everything lives in user-editable JavaScript. The core ships with just a protocol shim and window manager; the rest is scriptable. Out of the box it feels like a normal IRC client, but if you want to automate channel ops, invent new commands, or redesign the UI, the power is yours. I’d love your feedback, bug reports, and feature ideas... especially from fellow IRC lifers! I'll be adding…
2025 · irc.com · its alternatives →
- 10IH
Hi, I have published a mobile app to have coffee chat with HN users. There was already a guy who made a website for this, but I wanted to do it in mobile to practice WebRTC(technology behind the audio chat) and have some fun. I haven't spent too much time in terms of the general functionality as a HN client but can upgrade it if there are enough users enjoying the app. You can download the apps via the links below; IOS: https://apps.apple.com/tr/app/betternews-coffee-chat/id65047... Android: As you might have known, Android requires the app to be tested in a…
2024 · its alternatives →
- 11
2018 · chr15m.github.io · its alternatives →
- 12
Hey HN, what I wanted to build here is a proper universal layer for persisted agentic sessions, that could be seamlessly interacted both via web and a messenger (Telegram). I really like what's done so far and would be nice to hear some feedback from you. The interesting thing is that I started to use Chatcode during its development as soon it was possible, so used this tool to build itself. I know that there could be trust/privacy concerns, because it relies on a gateway that you need to install on your machine in order to work, but: 1. You can use it on any machine, just have some…
Jun 2026 · chatcode.dev · its alternatives →
- 13
hoody is a new take on chat, bringing back the curious, open spirit of the Internet. Revive the feeling of IRC, public message boards, and newsgroups with a localized twist.
2016 · hoody.im · its alternatives →
- 14
I recently received access to develop and use ChatGPT plugins, and embarked on a project to build a Hacker News integration as a learning exercise. My goal was to enable retrieval of content from HN to answer questions and produce insights in conversations with ChatGPT. I documented my journey in this blog post, which will hopefully be helpful to other plugin developers or anyone looking to learn more about embeddings. You can try the experience even if you don't have plugin access on ChatGPT through the demo on hn.kix.in - it's a loose approximation but should give you a sense of what's…
2023 · kix.in · its alternatives →
- 15
Hi HN! I develop Monadic Chat, an open-source framework that connects language models to a Linux environment via Docker. It allows AI agents to execute code, run Jupyter notebooks, and perform web scraping in a secure, sandboxed environment. Key features: - Sandboxed environment for AI code execution - Support for multiple language models - Easy integration with existing Docker workflows I built this because I needed a reliable way to let AI agents interact with a real computing environment while maintaining security and reproducibility. Some possible use cases include: - Helping developers…
2024 · yohasebe.github.io · its alternatives →
- 16
This weekend I finally shipped Gryt, a project I’ve been building since 2022 — an open-source, self-hostable Discord-style app focused on reliable voice chat + text. I’m the creator. I started it after getting fed up with Discord disconnects/paywalls and wanted something self-hosted and auditable. I started on this in 2022 and had an early proof-of-concept working back then (auth + friends list), but I quickly realized WebRTC voice isn’t something you can duct-tape together. I spent a big chunk of the next couple years learning the stack (ICE/DTLS-SRTP, NAT traversal, SFU design),…
Feb 2026 · gryt.chat · its alternatives →
- 17MW
I always find myself frustrated by how many steps I have to take to video chat with someone online. There's always too much software to download and install, and too many accounts to remember. The high-end, high-price Cisco conferencing systems I've used are especially fragile. So I built Vidless in a weekend for myself, and I hope you find it useful too. Just create a room and share the link, and you'll be chatting in seconds. You can invite several people (I haven't really tested a max yet), and chats on Vidless are always private. Enjoy!
2012 · vidless.com · its alternatives →
- 18CP
I’m Pranav, co-founder of Chatwoot (https://github.com/chatwoot/chatwoot), an open-source alternative to Intercom and Zendesk. What started as a passion project in 2019, gained a lot of momentum recently. This was possible because of all the contributions and love we got from the community. We’ve created a page (https://contributors.chatwoot.com) to showcase our contributors’ work and give them a platform to share their contributions with the world. We open-sourced this little project too. We’ve made our repo for other open-source projects to use it as a…
2022 · its alternatives →
- 19CU
I would love to hear what you guys think?
2013 · chatasaur.us · its alternatives →
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- 21CS
I have just launched a project that has been sitting on my hard drive 80% finished for the better part of a year. http://www.chatroulettespy.com It detects your 'anonymous' chat partner's IP address and performs a geolocation lookup on it to show the user the partner's approximate location on a map. I know the Chatroulette fad has peaked a long time ago (when I started this project), but there are still many people using it and its many clones. It was important for me to follow through on this one and not let it die on my hard drive like many projects before. I would appreciate any feedback…
2011 · chatroulettespy.com · its alternatives →
- 22HA
Hello HN! Here's my November Startup Sprint project (coded in two days). http://hackerlunch.com It allows you to post your lunch plans and lets other hackers join you. I built this because I often see HN users are interested in meeting each other if they are in the same area. I am not a coder, so this version is very rough. If people use it, I will work with others to build a more polished version. I would love some feedback. What do you think? Is this something you will be using?
2010 · hackerlunch.com · its alternatives →
- 23
Hi HN! Few months ago I've shared a new kind of markdown editor that we (a team of three from the Czech Republic) have been working on (HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46144801). What resonated with folks the most was Kraa's unique ‘real-real-time’ chat feature. We have now acted on this feedback, improved the chat features, and made what we call Kraa Trees. Trees allow anyone to create a light-weight community / chat channels. It would be a stretch to call it an alternative to Discord, yet, but we hope that the frictionless nature of Trees will make them…
Apr 2026 · kraa.io · its alternatives →
- 24IT
I have hosted my own IRC server, for a small community of coders and friends, since 1999. I never really strayed from using mirc or irssi, when I'm on a desktop or have a keyboard. On my iphone, the options were pretty lacking, though. The best true IRC client for iphone is one called IRC999, in my opinion. These clients all bugged me though because when the phone would go idle or shut off the wifi, the client disconnects. Sometime in early December, an idea hit me about an IRC client that would function sort of like Twitter's mobile client. It'd defer the task of maintaining the IRC…
2013 · imgur.com · its alternatives →
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