BitlBee is described as 'Brings IM (instant messaging) to IRC clients. It's a great solution for people who have an IRC client running all the time and don't want to run an additional MSN/AIM/whatever client' and is a instant messenger in the social & communications category. There are six alternatives to BitlBee for a variety of platforms, including Linux, Mac, Windows, BSD and iPad apps. The best BitlBee alternative is Pidgin, which is both free and Open Source. Other great apps like BitlBee are Trillian, Kopete, Sim-IM and Beagle IM.
Pidgin is a chat program which lets you log into accounts on multiple chat networks simultaneously. This means that you can be chatting with friends on XMPP and sitting in an IRC channel at the same time.
United States
Trillian is an instant messaging app that works on phones, tablets, and desktops while keeping your chats neatly synchronized between all of them! We think conversation should be easily shared between all of your devices, not trapped as text messages on your phone.
United States
Kopete is an instant messenger supporting AIM, ICQ, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, Novell GroupWise Messenger, and more. It is designed to be a flexible and extensible multi-protocol system suitable for personal and enterprise use.
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EU
Sim-IM, Simple Instant Messenger, is a multiple protocol instant messenger for MS Windows, GNU/Linux, FreeBSD. Sim-IM supports Jabber/XMPP, Google Talk, ICQ and AIM (Oscar), Yahoo! Messenger and Microsoft Messenger (MSN)
BeagleIM is a lightweight and powerful XMPP client developed by Tigase, Inc. It provides an easy way to start using the XMPP Protocol (formerly known as Jabber) if you've never used it before. Veterans of the protocol will find many features here they are familiar.
United States
Minbif aims to use the libpurple library from the Pidgin project to provide an IRC-friendly instant messaging client.
