date: 2019-12-28T23:57:14Z
Pidgin is a chat program which lets you log into accounts on multiple chat
networks simultaneously. This means that you can be chatting with friends on
XMPP and sitting in an IRC channel at the same time. Pidgin runs on Windows,
Linux, BSD, and other UNIX-like operating systems.
Pidgin is compatible with the following chat networks out of the box:
[
Jabber/XMPP](
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMPP),
[
Bonjour](
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonjour_(software)),
[
Gadu-Gadu](
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadu-Gadu),
[
IRC](
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat),
[
MicroFocus GroupWise Messenger](
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GroupWise)
(formerly from Novell), [
HCLSametime](
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HCL_Sametime) (formerly from Lotus/IBM),
[
SILC](
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SILC_(protocol)),
[
SIMPLE](
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIMPLE_(instant_messaging_protocol)),
and [
Zephyr](
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zephyr_(protocol)). It can support
many more with [
plugins](
{{<ref "plugins">}}).
Pidgin supports many features of these chat networks, such as file transfers,
away messages, buddy icons, custom smileys, and typing notifications. Numerous
plugins also extend Pidgin's functionality above and beyond the standard
Pidgin is free and contains no ads. All our code is open source and licensed
under the GNU General Public License. This means you can get Pidgin's underlying
code and modify it to suit your needs, as long as you publish the changes you
make for everyone to benefit from as well.
Pidgin is translated into many [
different languages](
{{<ref"about/supported-languages">}}), thanks to the generous contributions of our
Pidgin is a huge project that is under constant development. Releases are
usually frequent and driven by user contributions, such as
[
issues](
https://issues.imfreedom.org/issues/PIDGIN?u=1) and
[
contributions](
{{< ref "development/contributing" >}}).
