Interoperability 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 | |||
| Adium | 17 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Partial | Yes | Yes | |
 |
AIM | 2 | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
| Beejive | 7 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | |
 |
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 Pro | 6 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes | Partial | No | No |
| Trillian Astra | 9 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes | Partial | Yes | No | |
 |
Windows Live Messenger (WLM) | 3 | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
 |
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.
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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 ?
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!
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.
Windows Live Messenger doesn’t do Facebook AFAIK.
You are absolutely correct, Menthix. Thanks for spotting the error. I’ve updated the chart accordingly.
Yo that chart isn’t colored right, there are a few nos that are green and yes that is red.
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!
How about Kopete? http://docs.kde.org/development/en/kdenetwork/kopete/protocols.html#protocols-list
@Joshua – Good call. I’ve added Kopete to the table, and create an overview: https://bigblueball.mystagingwebsite.com/im/kopete/
@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.
@Joshua – So it does… I’ve noted that on the chart. IRC is the granddaddy of IM.
it a wonderful site
i love instant messager