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IRC Statistics

@IRC_Stats

Statistics on IRC usage on the Internet since 2016. Also at Mastodon at https://xitter.gq/t.co/0ZiDTkl8bP

ircstats.org/
Joined April 2016
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The final gathering of IRC Stats for Nov'26 starts now. Sorry to all IRC networks for the noise! IRCStats gathers statistics on #IRC usage on the Internet, see ircstats.org. We DO NOT publish any server/network/nick/channel names. IRCStats is NOT an indexer.
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This goes in 4 sweeps, like every year since 2016. Trying port 6697 and 6667, and then another go on both for connections that didn't succeed (with a new IP). Whenever a complete IRC connection has been made the server is marked as completed.
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A new statistic this year is the key exchange group used by #IRC servers with TLS. This shows X25519MLKEM768 available on 10%. It's the only quantum-safe group seen at the moment that protects against "Harvest now, decrypt later". ircstats.org/server-features…
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Support for X25519MLKEM768 is limited because it was only recently added, in OpenSSL 3.5.x, which was released in Apr 2025. Most Linux distros don't ship with this yet. Debian 13 and Fedora 43 have it. Ubuntu 26.04 will have it in 2026. A year from now it should be better.
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NEW: Dec 2025 statistics published on #IRC Server deployment on the internet. See ircstats.org/. Both IPv4 and IPv6 were scanned on port 6667 and 6697. In total, 6660 IRC servers were found, of which 4991 were publicly accessible.
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NEW STATS: #IRC server software in use on the Internet (based on 4991 publicly accessible servers): #UnrealIRCd 37%, #InspIRCd 22%, ngircd 9%, Hybrid 7%, Ergo 7% (+2% compared to last year). See details at ircstats.org
Image from IRC Statistics (@IRC_Stats)
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This time, 78.7% of the IRC servers let us fully connect. That's 3.8% less than a year ago, which might have to do with the recent spam waves. Stats should still be good enough. The statistics for CAP and TLS can be gathered without letting us connect fully, so are unaffected.
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The final gathering of IRC Stats for Dec'25 has begun. Sorry to all IRC networks for the noise! IRCStats gathers statistics on #IRC usage on the Internet, see ircstats.org. We DO NOT publish any server/network/nick/channel names. IRCStats is NOT an indexer.
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This goes in 4 sweeps, like every year since 2016. Trying port 6697 and 6667, and then another go on both for those connections that did not succeed (with a new IP). Whenever a complete IRC connection has been made the server is marked as completed.
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Data corrections and regenerating stats since 2016. For most pages no impact or 0.3% at most, but for CAPs I made the silly mistake of not counting servers in the category "Other". So for some CAPs the displayed percentage was too low, eg multi-prefix goes from 55% to 56%.
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The regenerating also helps with server software detection that was added later, e.g. Solanum was added as a separate entry in dec-2024 and only showed up since 2024. But now that it is regenerated, you can see it picking up since 2021. For Ergo it is a similar story.
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Ergo is now called Ergo consistently through the years, even though called Oragono before. Only remaining defect is that Dec-2020 stats could not be regenerated fully and therefore some Ergo stats are unavailable on the TLS page (& soon ISUPPORT) and 2020 CAPs may be 1-2% off.
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NEW: Dec 2024 statistics published on #IRC Server deployment on the internet. See ircstats.org/. Both IPv4 and IPv6 were scanned. Almost 6700 IRC servers were found, of which around 5250 were publicly accessible.
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NEW STATS: #IRC Server software in use on the Internet (based on 5250+ publicly accessible servers): #UnrealIRCd 38%, #InspIRCd 22%, ngircd 9%, Hybrid 7%, Ergo 5%. See details at ircstats.org.
Image from IRC Statistics (@IRC_Stats)
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Also Solanum is no longer under "Other". Is now broken out separately with a market share of 1.3%. 70 servers this year, 65 servers in 2023. All the other IRCds under "Other" are either very small numbers (<0.5%) and/or almost entirely in use on a single network.
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The final gathering of IRC Stats for Dec'24 starts in 5 minutes. Sorry to all IRC networks for the noise! IRCStats gathers statistics on #IRC usage on the Internet, see ircstats.org. We DO NOT publish any server/network/nick/channel names. IRCStats is NOT an indexer.
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This goes in 4 sweeps, like every year: first port 6667, then 6697 (TLS). After that from a different IP address the other way around: the remaining 6697 that did not get fully connected yet on IRC, and then the same for 6667.
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NEW: Dec 2023 statistics published on #IRC server deployment on the internet! See ircstats.org/. Both IPv4 and IPv6 were scanned. Almost 7000 IRC servers were found, of which around 5500 were publicly accessible.
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NEW STATS: #IRC Server software in use on the Internet (based on 5500+ publicly accessible servers): #UnrealIRCd 38%, #InspIRCd 21%, ngircd 9%, Hybrid 8%. Ergo grows to 3.5%. See details at ircstats.org/.
Image from IRC Statistics (@IRC_Stats)
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The final gathering of IRC Stats for Dec'23 starts in 15 minutes. Sorry to all IRC networks for the noise! IRCStats gathers statistics on #IRC usage on the Internet, see ircstats.org/. We DO NOT publish any server/network/nick/channel names. IRCStats is NOT an indexer.
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This goes in 4 sweeps, like every year: first port 6667, then 6697 (TLS). After that from a different IP address the other way around: the remaining 6697 that did not get fully connected yet on IRC, and then the same for 6667.
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