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IM Interoperability Matrix

March 8, 2009 by Jeff Hester  
Filed under Instant Messaging

BigBlueBall Reference LibraryInteroperability is the holy grail of instant messaging, allowing your instant messenger to communicate with other instant messenger platforms. How does your instant messenger stack up when it comes to interoperability? 

The following chart shows which protocols are supported by some of the most popular instant messaging programs. Note that in most cases, support for an additional protocol still requires that you have a valid user account on each network. 

    Supported
Protocols
WLM
(MSN)
Y!M AIM ICQ XMPP
GTalk,
Jabber
IRC Bonjour MySpace Facebook
  Adium 17 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Partial Partial Yes Yes
AIM AIM 2 No No Yes Yes No No No No No
  Beejive 7 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No Yes No
Digsby Digsby 7 Yes Yes Yes Yes Partial No No Yes Yes
  eBuddy 7 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes
  iChat 4 No No Yes No Yes No Yes No No
  ICQ 2 No No Yes Yes No No No No No
  Instan-t 6 Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No No
  Kopete 11 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No
  meebo 5 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No
  Miranda IM 15 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No
  Nimbuzz 12 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes
  Paltalk 3 No Yes Yes Yes No No No No No
  Pidgin 12 Partial Partial Yes Partial Partial Yes Partial Yes Yes
  Trillian Basic 5 Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes No No No
Trillian Trillian Pro 6 Yes Yes Yes Yes Partial Yes Partial No No
  Trillian Astra 9 Yes Yes Yes Yes Partial Yes Partial Yes No
WLM Windows Live Messenger (WLM) 3 Yes Yes No No No No No No No
Y!M Yahoo! Messenger 3 Yes Yes No No No No No No No

 

Updated on March 11, 2009. 

Note that we haven’t included all the protocols available. Instead, we chose to focus on the most popular. For a more detailed look at IM interoperability, see the Multiprotocol Clients chart on Wikipedia. Got an update? Leave a comment below.

Looking for the latest versions? We’ve got you covered.

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Comments

17 Responses to “IM Interoperability Matrix”
  1. Last(?) updated 2004 !??????

    Anyway, here’s a change – Paltalk – no longer does MSN (OR WLM) – only YM, AIM, ICQ.

    And also, ODIGO – didn’t that cease to function many years ago ?

  2. Jeff Hester says:

    Great feedback, Eagle_Kiwi! We’ve updated the table to show the most popular protocols, remove some programs that have disappeared and provided a link to even more detailed info on Wikipedia. Thanks for helping us improve!

  3. Doris Kenney says:

    Nice update on interoperability Jeff! The Wiki link has a ton of good information but I do believe this matrix is far easier to digest.

  4. Menthix says:

    Windows Live Messenger doesn’t do Facebook AFAIK.

  5. Jeff Hester says:

    You are absolutely correct, Menthix. Thanks for spotting the error. I’ve updated the chart accordingly.

  6. D.Vader says:

    Yo that chart isn’t colored right, there are a few nos that are green and yes that is red.

  7. aperson says:

    I thought pidgin had better support than that.

    This comment was originally posted on Reddit

  8. Jeff Hester says:

    Thanks for catching that, Darth. There were a few cells in the iChat and ICQ rows that were mis-colored, and now they are fixed!

  9. koorogi says:

    Adium uses the libraries from pidgin for the actual protocols … so why is it listed as having better compatibility than pidgin?

    This comment was originally posted on Reddit

  10. Jeff Hester says:

    @Joshua – Good call. I’ve added Kopete to the table, and create an overview: http://www.bigblueball.com/im/kopete/

  11. @Jeff – For whatever reason, IRC isn’t mentioned in the link I posted, but when you go to add an account in Kopete, it is an option. Weird.

  12. Jeff Hester says:

    @Joshua – So it does… I’ve noted that on the chart. IRC is the granddaddy of IM.

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