Web site: bitlbee.org
Category: Network
Subcategory: Instant Messengers, IRC Clients
Platform: Linux, OS X, Windows, BSD, Unix, AmigaOS
License: GNU GPL
Interface: GUI
Wikipedia: BitlBee
First release: August 9, 2002
BitlBee – an instant messaging client. However, unlike traditional clients, BitlBee is a network gateway that presents itself to the user as an IRC server and knows the ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, XMPP and MSN protocols.
On the outside, BitlBee behaves like any other instant messenger, but the operation is significantly different: the user uses a normal IRC client for communication. It can connect to various instant messaging networks via the BitlBee server. The user profile can be permanently saved on the server. The advantage of this model is that any IRC client can be used for instant messaging.
BitlBee 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 XMPP/facebook/discord/whatever client.
BitlBee currently supports XMPP/Jabber and the Twitter microblogging network (and GNU social) out of the box. There are plugins for facebook, discord, steam, mastodon, and you can use libpurple to get even more protocols.