[EduardoBautista]

Looks interesting but I admit I haven't really used it. Is its goal to ultimately replace IRC?

[Arathorn]

Not necessarily to replace IRC but to provide a common protocol which can bridge to IRC, Slack, XMPP etc.

Matrix provides free (free as in beer /and/ free as in speech) gateways to Slack and IRC, so you could use it for your purpose here if you wanted.

[rhabarba]

It rather is a "better XMPP" in my opinion.