IRC vs Discord: Which is Better?

Opinion

The Old Guard vs The New Kid

Discord launched in 2015 and quickly became the dominant platform for online communities, gaming groups, and developer teams. But IRC has been around since 1988 — and it's still going strong. So which is actually better? The answer depends on what you value.

Privacy & Data Ownership

IRC wins here. IRC is a decentralized, open protocol. Nobody owns it. Your messages aren't stored on a corporate server, mined for advertising data, or subject to a single company's terms of service. You can run your own IRC server if you want.

Discord, on the other hand, is a closed, centralized platform. All your messages, voice activity, and metadata are stored on Discord's servers. Their privacy policy allows them to collect and use your data in various ways.

Features

Discord wins here. Out of the box, Discord offers voice/video chat, screen sharing, bots, slash commands, threads, forum channels, and a polished mobile app. IRC is text-only by default (though some clients add extras).

That said, modern IRC networks like IRC4Fun support IRCv3 extensions that add message editing, typing indicators, reactions, and more — closing the gap considerably.

Reliability & Uptime

IRC wins here. IRC networks are typically run by passionate volunteers and have historically maintained excellent uptime. IRC4Fun has been online since 2008. Discord has suffered high-profile outages that took down thousands of communities simultaneously — because it's all centralized.

Openness & Interoperability

IRC wins decisively. IRC is an open standard (RFC 1459 and friends). Any client, any server, any bot can connect. You can bridge IRC to Matrix, Slack, Telegram, or Discord. Discord is a walled garden — no official API for bots to bridge out, restricted third-party clients.

Ease of Use

Discord wins here. Creating a Discord account and joining a server takes two minutes. IRC has a small learning curve — choosing a client, understanding channels, registering a nick. But it's not difficuilt once you get the hang of it, and IRC4Fun's web chat makes it just as easy to get started.

Community Culture

IRC wins for quality. IRC communities tend to be more focused, technical, and collegial. The barrier to entry filters out a lot of the toxicity you find on more accessible platforms. Open-source projects like Linux, Python, Mozilla, and countless others still rely on IRC for their core communities.

The Verdict

Feature	IRC	Discord
Privacy	✅ Excellent	❌ Poor
Open Standard	✅ Yes	❌ No
Reliability	✅ Excellent	⚠️ Central point of failure
Voice/Video	❌ No	✅ Yes
Ease of Use	⚠️ Slight learning curve	✅ Very easy
Data Ownership	✅ Yours	❌ Discord's
Self-hostable	✅ Yes	❌ No

If privacy, openness, and reliability matter to you — IRC is the better choice. If you need voice chat and don't mind a corporate platform, Discord fits the bill. Many people use both!

Ready to give IRC a shot? Join IRC4Fun now — it's free and takes 30 seconds.