Comparison of instant messaging protocols

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Basic general information about the protocols: creator, version, amongst others.

Protocol Creator First public release date License Identity (not inc. alias) Asynchronous message relaying Transport Layer Security Unlimited number of contacts Bulletins to all contacts One-to-many routing 4 spam protection Supports groups or channels for members / nonmembers / nobody Audio/VoIP Webcam/Video
Cspace Cspace 2006 Jul 17 Open Unique RSA-Key No Yes Yes No No No No ? ?
Gadu-Gadu Gadu-Gadu 2000 Jul 17 Proprietary Unique number
e.g. 12345678
Yes No Yes No No Yes (simple) Yes Yes ?
Gale Dan Egnor ? Open standard Unique RSA key, aliased to user@domain ? Yes (public/private key) ? ? ? ? Yes (multiple simultaneous, any size, programmable, encrypted) No No
IRC Jarkko Oikarinen 1988 Aug Open standard Nickname!Username@hostname
(or "hostmask")
e.g. user!~usr@a.b.com 1
Yes, but via a memo system that

differs from the main system

Yes, depending on individual server support No 3 No Simplistic multicast Medium Yes (everyone, multiple simultaneous, any size) No No
MSNP (Windows Live Messenger, etc) Microsoft 1999 Jul Proprietary E-mail address (Windows Live ID) Yes No Only for certified robots No Centralistic None Yes Yes Yes
OSCAR protocol (AIM, ICQ) AOL 1997 Proprietary Username, Email Address or UIN
e.g. 12345678
Yes Yes (Aim Pro, Aim Lite) No No Centralistic client-based Yes (Multiple, simultaneous) ? ?
PSYC (Protocol for SYnchronous Conferencing) PSYC Project 1995 Open PSYC URI as in psyc://server.example.net/~nickname Yes Yes Yes Yes Custom multicast Yes Yes (multiple simultaneous, any size, programmable) ? ?
Retroshare Retroshare 2007 Mar 21 Open Unique RSA-Key No Yes Yes No No No No ? ?
RVP (Windows Messenger, etc) Microsoft 1997 Mar Proprietary Windows Active Directory Login No No ? No Centralistic None No ? ?
SIP/SIMPLE IETF 2002 Dec Open standard user@hostname Yes Yes Yes Yes No Medium ? ? ?
Skype Protocol Skype ? Proprietary Username No Proprietary ? No ? ? Yes Yes Yes
TOC protocol (deprecated) AOL ? Proprietary Username or UIN
e.g. 12345678
Yes No ? ? Centralistic ? paying members only ? ?
TOC2 protocol AOL 2005 Sep Proprietary Username or UIN
e.g. 12345678
Yes No No No Centralistic No paying members only ? ?
XMPP (Jabber) Jeremie Miller, standardized via IETF 1999 Jan Open standard Jabber ID (JID)
e.g. usr@a.b.c/home 2
Yes Yes Yes Yes Unicast lists Several Standardized Types Optional Yes Yes
YMSG (Yahoo! Messenger) Yahoo! ? Proprietary Username Yes No No Yes Centralistic Yes No (groups discontinued due to liability) PMs, Conferences, and Chat Rooms Yes
Zephyr Notification Service ? ? Open standard ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Protocol Creator First public release date License Identity (not inc. alias) Asynchronous message relaying Transport Layer Security Unlimited number of contacts Bulletins to all contacts One-to-many routing 4 spam protection Supports groups or channels for members / nonmembers / nobody Audio/VoIP Webcam/Video

Note 1: In ~usr@a.b.com, the a.b.com part is known as the "hostmask" and can either be the server being connected from or a "cloak" granted by the server administrator; a more realistic example is ~myname@myisp.example.com. The tilde generally indicates that the username provided by the IRC client on signon was not verified with the ident service.

Note 2: In usr@a.b.c/home, the home part is a "resource", which distinguishes the same user when logged in from multiple locations, possibly simultaneously; a more realistic example is user@jabberserver.example.com/home

Note 3: Scalability issue: The protocol gets increasingly inefficient with the number of contacts.[1][2]

Note 4: One-to-many/many-to-many communications primarily comprise presence information, publish/subscribe and groupchat distribution. Some technologies have the ability to distribute data by multicast, avoiding bottlenecks on the sending side caused by the number of recipients. Efficient distribution of presence is currently however a technological scalability issue for both XMPP (Jabber) and SIP/SIMPLE.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ RFC 1324, D. Reed, 1992. 2.5.1, Size
  2. ^ Functionality provided by systems for synchronous conferencing, C.v. Loesch, 1992. 1.2.1 Growth


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