Modern web IRC client designed for self-hosting

Overview

Modern features brought to IRC. Push notifications, link previews, new message markers, and more bring IRC to the 21st century.
Always connected. Remains connected to IRC servers while you are offline.
Cross platform. It doesn't matter what OS you use, it just works wherever Node.js runs.
Responsive interface. The client works smoothly on every desktop, smartphone and tablet.
Synchronized experience. Always resume where you left off no matter what device.

To learn more about configuration, usage and features of The Lounge, take a look at the website.

The Lounge is the official and community-managed fork of Shout, by Mattias Erming.

Installation and usage

The Lounge requires latest Node.js LTS version or more recent. Yarn package manager is also recommended.
If you want to install with npm, --unsafe-perm is required for a correct install.

Running stable releases

Please refer to the install and upgrade documentation on our website for all available installation methods.

Running from source

The following commands install and run the development version of The Lounge:

git clone https://github.com/thelounge/thelounge.git
cd thelounge
yarn install
NODE_ENV=production yarn build
yarn start

When installed like this, thelounge executable is not created. Use node index <command> to run commands.

⚠️ While it is the most recent codebase, this is not production-ready! Run at your own risk. It is also not recommended to run this as root.

Development setup

Simply follow the instructions to run The Lounge from source above, on your own fork.

Before submitting any change, make sure to:

Read the Contributing instructions
Run yarn test to execute linters and test suite
Run yarn build if you change or add anything in client/js or client/views
yarn dev can be used to start The Lounge with hot module reloading