[wooby]

I've been using it daily for about a year. I run it behind Apache (for SSL with LetsEncrypt) on a 1 year reserved T2.Nano VM in AWS ($3.125/month) that I also occasionally use for other things.

I'm involved in a lot of open source but had used IRC only intermittently until I got The Lounge running.

I've really enjoyed it. I'm able to log in and see the same unreads and direct messages across my work PC, personal PC, and phone and iPad. The software has been reliable and relatively painless to update. The UI functions nicely on touch devices.

Before The Lounge I operated ZNC in EC2, but configuring device-specific clients to use it was a chore, and I didn't find myself using IRC very much. Now, I use IRC all the time.

Obviously if you're not comfortable maintaining a server then this isn't the option for you, but as a "power user" I've found the web UI perfectly tolerable. Instead of maintaining IRC clients on multiple devices and pointing them at ZNC, I maintain a single IRC client -- The Lounge.

[wild_preference]

irccloud.com ($50/year) is a good option for people who don't want to run their own server. Only costs $13/year more than your solution.

Though paying money to receive messages while offline (or fiddling with ZNC) is one of the reasons IRC getting its lunch eaten by everything.