HexChat is dead — what to use instead in 2026

The short version: HexChat development ended on 9 February 2024, when its maintainer shipped 2.16.2 and announced it as the last release. Since then, Flathub has delisted it and Debian dropped it from testing (January 2026) — though the project homepage, in a final touch of neglect, still describes it as actively developed. If a list recommends HexChat in 2026 without mentioning any of this, close the tab; the rest of its advice is the same vintage.

Do you have to move? #

Not today. HexChat still installs and still connects; on Linux, distro packages (it remains in Debian 13 stable, Ubuntu and Fedora) at least get rebuilt against current libraries. The Windows installer is the worse story: its bundled OpenSSL and GTK are frozen in February 2024 and will never see another security fix, on a program whose job is talking to the internet. No alarm bells — but every month adds a little rot, and the migration is easier than the inertia suggests.

Where to go #

The fresh start: Halloy. The recommendation for most people. Modern, fast, open source, actively developed, and better than HexChat at the things that matter in 2026 — IRCv3, proper history against a bouncer, a UI without the 2003 baggage. What it does not bring along: your Perl and Python plugins.

Download (free):

• Windows: winget install squidowl.halloy
• macOS: brew install --cask halloy
• Linux: Flathub
• Installers for everything at halloy.chat

The familiar feel: KVIrc. If what you liked about HexChat was the tabbed, knob-covered, everything-configurable GUI, KVIrc is the closest maintained equivalent (5.2.10, December 2025) — GPL, Qt, scripting language included.

On Windows specifically: AdiIRC. Freeware, dense, endlessly tweakable — the natural home for HexChat users who were really mIRC users in exile. Or mIRC itself, $19.95 and very much alive.

On KDE: Konversation. Released monthly, integrates properly, zero drama. The whole Linux field is in the Linux guide.

The sidestep: if the annoyance of losing your client is really the annoyance of losing state, take the opportunity to fix persistence properly — The Lounge self-hosted, or IRCCloud hosted, and the client question mostly dissolves.

Moving your settings #

The things worth carrying over fit in a text file: your networks and channels, your SASL credentials, and your highlight words. HexChat kept these under ~/.config/hexchat (or %APPDATA%\HexChat) — servlist.conf for networks is human-readable, and ten minutes with it recreates your setup in any client above. Scripts are the one real loss: nothing else runs HexChat's Python/Perl plugins, so check whether your must-haves exist natively elsewhere (Halloy covers the common cases — notifications, highlights, URL handling — in configuration rather than code).

The one-paragraph verdict #

HexChat earned its decade as the default; nothing about its end is scandal, just an unpaid maintainer finishing. But defaults have expiry dates. Halloy for the future, KVIrc or AdiIRC for the familiar, Konversation for KDE — and whichever you pick, it will be the first client you have installed in years that still has someone answering the bug tracker.