Related link: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/2885

A couple of weeks ago I asked O’Reilly weblog readers to weigh in on their thoughts on using Adium vs iChat as their AIM client. There were opinions that went both ways. Here’s a sample:

“iChat is basic but has filesharing, and is also well integrated with other iApps. In Mail, you can see who’s online, which is handy if a chat would clear up the query faster than exchange of email.”

“Adium is amazing - built-in logging and log searching, tabbed windows for chat, very sturdy… the only place I think Adium is a little clunky is in adding new users, where it’s a bit more difficult to do than with iChat.”

“Adium: completely noninstrusive. It lets you do other things while chatting and still know whats going on. If people come on/offline or someone messages you, it will show up nicely on the dock icon, using 0 percent of your other precious screenspace. Also, while you are chatting, you can close the window and come right back to it without losing you’re chats. Works well while doing lots of stuff and being able to keep on top of instant messaging.”

“The one killer feature on a portable is that iChat can tell when you sleep your machine, and tries to reconnect when you turn back on. It also seems to detect when you connect to an Airport network, and tries to connect then. Adium, unfortunatly, doesn’t know how to deal w/ the frequent disconnectes, etc.”

“… used Adium for at least a couple of months before Apple’s iChat came out, and for the most part I had (and have) been totally content with Adium. Its interface is clean and simple, and I find the tabbed conversations to be immensely easier to manage than separate windows. While I occassionally yearn for file transfers, buddy icons, and better access to profiles, I use it to chat, and that it does flawlessly (well…close enough for me).”

“Instead of doing a comprehensive comparison, I’m going to highlight one main issue: the idea of Adium being the power user’s preferred choice. I would consider myself a power user (I’m a programmer and designer by profession, and I make great use of the unix-like features in OS X), but after using both clients extensively, I finally decided to go with iChat. It was a tough decision.”

That last comment sums up the whole of the opinions on the two clients if you read through all of the comments. Both are good, but for different reasons.

Adium seems to be the power user’s choice seemingly for being unobtrusive and handling many chat sessions at once. iChat integrates with other iApps and handles the wireless and power settings for which Apple’s portables are known for.

Overall, I’d have to say that the majority of users seem to weigh in as power users and that I’d declare Adium the winner in this bout. Oh, Adium and Josh Lee, winner of the book.