BitlBee

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Open-source cross-platform IRC gateway

title: "BitlBee" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["2002-software", "free-xmpp-clients", "instant-messaging-clients-for-linux", "macos-instant-messaging-clients", "windows-instant-messaging-clients", "free-instant-messaging-clients", "irc", "yahoo!-instant-messaging-clients", "free-communication-software"] description: "Open-source cross-platform IRC gateway" topic_path: "technology/operating-systems" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitlBee" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Open-source cross-platform IRC gateway ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox software"]

Field	Value
name	BitlBee
logo	Bitlbee logo.png
screenshot	Bitlbee irssi sawfish.png
caption	Screenshot of Irssi IRC client connected to a BitlBee server to communicate via Windows Live
developer	BitlBee team, with Wilmer van der Gaast as Lead Developer
released
latest release version
latest release date
latest preview version
latest preview date
programming language	C
genre	Instant messaging
license	GPL-2.0-or-later
website
::

BitlBee is a cross-platform IRC instant messaging gateway, licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

BitlBee communicates with the user via the IRC protocol, providing a gateway to popular chat networks such as AIM and ICQ (via OSCAR), Microsoft Messenger service (via MSNP), Yahoo! (via YMSG) and Facebook Messenger (via MQTT with a plugin) and the microblogging networks Twitter, Identi.ca, and GNU Social. Since version 3.0, BitlBee can be built to use the libpurple library, which supports file transfers on many IM networks, and supports GaduGadu, QQ and other less well-known protocols. Off-the-record messaging is supported by Bitlbee. It supports the display of remote user status using the IRC voice attribute: online users are shown with voice, away users are shown without. Many IRC commands such as /WHO and /QUERY are available, though the capabilities of the remote IM protocols limit which IRC commands will work.

It can be installed and operated on a user's personal computer, a local server, A user registers with the BitlBee server for future credentials storage. Service protocols are added along with their credentials; following this, the software will display the user's buddy list as normal IRC users in a channel. Conversations can be public, or use the private message facility of IRC.{{cite web |title=Bitlbee Quickstart Guide (Online Edition) & Notes |first= Elizabeth |last=Krumbach |publisher=PrincessLeia.com |url=http://princessleia.com/bitlbee.php

BitlBee runs on Linux, Unix, BSD, Windows, AmigaOS{{cite book | last = Mutton | first = Paul | title = IRC hacks | publisher = O'Reilly Media | year = 2004 | pages = 374–383 | isbn = 0-596-00687-X | chapter=Hack#99: Use MSN/ICQ/Jabber from IRC | url = http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596006877

References

"The Bitlbee Open Source Project on Open Hub - Language page".
"bitlbee.8".
"HowtoFacebookMQTT - BitlBee Wiki".
"How to twitter in BitlBee". BitlBee.org.
[http://wiki.bitlbee.org/HowtoPurple "Using BitlBee with the libpurple IM backend"]. BitlBee.org.
"Get OTR to work with bitlbee".
or accessed on public gateway servers.[http://www.bitlbee.org/main.php/servers.html "Public BitlBee servers"]. BitlBee.org.

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::