HexChat

---

title: "HexChat" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["free-irc-clients", "instant-messaging-clients-that-use-gtk", "irc-clients", "unix-irc-clients", "windows-irc-clients"] description: "IRC client" topic_path: "technology/operating-systems" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HexChat" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary IRC client ::

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

Field	Value
name	HexChat
logo	[[File:Hexchat Logo.svg
logo alt	Hexchat Logo
screenshot	[[File:Hexchat 2.16.0 screenshot.png
screenshot alt	Screenshot of Hexchat 2.16.0
caption	Screenshot of Hexchat 2.16.0
collapsible
developer	Patrick Griffis
released
discontinued	yes
ver layout
latest release version	2.16.2
latest release date	9 February 2024
latest preview version
latest preview date
repo
programming language	C, Python, Perl, C++, C#
operating system	Linux, Microsoft Windows
platform	x86-64, ARM
language count
license	GPL-2.0 only with OpenSSL linking exception
website
::

| name = HexChat | logo = [[File:Hexchat Logo.svg|48px]] | logo alt = Hexchat Logo | logo caption = | screenshot = [[File:Hexchat 2.16.0 screenshot.png|300px]] | screenshot alt = Screenshot of Hexchat 2.16.0 | caption = Screenshot of Hexchat 2.16.0 | collapsible = | author = | developer = Patrick Griffis | released = | discontinued = yes | ver layout = | latest release version = 2.16.2 | latest release date = 9 February 2024 | latest preview version = | latest preview date = | repo = | programming language = C, Python, Perl, C++, C# | operating system = Linux, Microsoft Windows | platform = x86-64, ARM | size = | language = | language count = | language footnote = | genre = | license = GPL-2.0 only with OpenSSL linking exception | website = | standard = | AsOf =

HexChat is a discontinued Internet Relay Chat client and is a fork of XChat. It has a choice of a tabbed document interface or tree interface, support for multiple servers, and numerous configuration options. Both command-line and graphical versions are available.

The client runs on Microsoft Windows and Unix-like operating systems, and many Linux distributions include packages in their repositories.

History

The XChat-WDK (XChat Windows Driver Kit) project started in 2010 and was originally Windows-only. The project's original goal was to merge itself with XChat, but evolved from just fixing Windows bugs to adding new features. It started to make sense to support more platforms than Windows. On July 6, 2012, XChat-WDK officially changed its name to HexChat.

The project was discontinued in early 2024, citing lack of maintainer availability.

References

References

1. "About | TingPing's blog".
2. "News – HexChat".
3. [https://hexchat.github.io/news/announcement.html Announcement of HexChat] Posted on 06 Jul, 2012
4. "Shareware background".
5. (July 6, 2012). "Announcement".
6. (February 9, 2024). "2.16.2, The Final Release".

::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. ::