A modern IRC client with a familiar, Discord-like interface. Built with Electron and packed with IRCv3 support.
Pre-built binaries for macOS, Linux, and Windows are available on the Releases page.
- Multi-server — Connect to as many IRC networks as you want, all at once
- Rich messaging — Replies, reactions, typing indicators, read markers, message editing, message deletion, inline image previews, and full IRC color/formatting support
- Text formatting — Markdown-style bold, italic, strikethrough, spoilers, and headings alongside IRC formatting codes
- GIF picker — Search and send GIFs, stickers, clips, memes, and emoji via Klipy
- Link previews — OpenGraph metadata cards for shared URLs with title, description, and thumbnail
- File uploads — Upload and share files via
draft/filehost; images and videos render inline, other files show a download card with filename and size - Friend list — Track when your friends are online/offline via IRCv3 MONITOR
- User profiles — Edit your nickname, realname, and avatar (via
draft/metadata-2) - Chat history — Messages are stored locally in SQLite and fetched from the server via
draft/chathistory - Search — Full-text search across all your messages; quick channel switcher with
Ctrl+K - Muting — Timed or permanent mute for channels and servers
- Auto-update — Get notified of new releases and update in-app
- Cross-platform — macOS (.dmg), Linux (.AppImage, .deb, .rpm), and Windows (.exe)
Switchboard negotiates and supports a wide range of IRCv3 capabilities:
Authentication — SASL (PLAIN, EXTERNAL, SCRAM-SHA-256), STS, in-band account registration
Messaging — message-tags, message-ids, server-time, echo-message, batch, labeled-response, standard-replies, draft/chathistory, draft/multiline, draft/message-redaction, draft/edit, draft/search, +typing, +draft/react
Users — account-notify, account-tag, away-notify, chghost, setname, extended-join, multi-prefix, userhost-in-names, monitor, invite-notify, bot, WHOX, draft/metadata-2, draft/pre-away
Channels — draft/read-marker, draft/channel-rename, +draft/channel-context, draft/no-implicit-names, draft/persistence
Server — draft/network-icon, draft/filehost, draft/event-playback, draft/register-before-connect
Requires Node.js 22+ and npm.
git clone https://github.com/KaraZajac/switchboard.git
cd switchboard
npm install
npm run devnpm run build:mac # macOS .dmg (x64 + arm64)
npm run build:linux # AppImage, .deb, .rpm
npm run build:win # Windows .exe installernpm test # Run all tests
npm run lint # ESLint
npm run typecheck # TypeScript strict checks| Framework | Electron 33, React 19 |
| State | Zustand 5 |
| Styling | Tailwind CSS 4 |
| Database | sql.js (SQLite in pure JS) |
| Build | electron-vite, electron-builder |
| Tests | Vitest |
BSD-3-Clause — see LICENSE for details.
Copyright (c) 2026 .leviathan.