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Or Matrix.

Spin up your own XMPP server with Prosody. I did a week or two ago, and it works pretty well aside from on iOS where the clients really need work.

Glad you're liking Prosody! There is a lot of work underway to improve the iOS experience, particularly in the Monal and Siskin projects.

Some of the work on Siskin is being sponsored by our other project, Snikket.

For all these projects one of the best things you can do right now is simply try them and give feedback, reporting any issues you encounter.

I never left. Freenode is an amazing resource.

I find existing IRC communities/channels almost impossible to penetrate. The people have known each other for so long, that they are effectively a closed group.

And I'm saying this as a person who was a daily IRC user 20 years ago.

My exact thoughts.