1) Highly Customizable Multi-User Chat Client in Javascript

Candy is a JavaScript-based multi-user chat client. There are plenty of web-based chat clients out there. Most of them are built to emulate your instant messenger. They offer you tons of settings. Candy is different. It’s built for your community.

Candy focused on real-time multi-user chatting. It is easy to configure, easy to run, easy to use. It is highly customizable and 100% well-documented. And it is used and approved in a productive environment with up to 400 concurrent users. It works with all major web browsers including IE7.

Requirements: Javascript Framework
Demo: http://candy-chat.github.com/candy/
License: MIT License

2) Chat Room v2 with PHP, jQuery, and a Text File

This is Chat2, which is an update to original Chat Room published on CSS-Tricks. In some ways, the technology is the same. We employ PHP to talk to the server, jQuery to keep the chat rolling, and the chats themselves will be stored in .txt files just like the first version.

There are some new features in Chat2. Usernames are now unique to users currently chatting. You can see a “currently chatting” user list. And there are multiple rooms for chatting available now.

Requirements: jQuery Framework
Demo: http://css-tricks.com/examples/Chat2/
License: License Free

3) YShout 5 a Beautfiul PHP + Ajax Shoutbox

YShout is a lightweight yet full-featured package that allows you to easily add an interactive shoutbox to your website. So that you can communicate with your visitors in real time, and also provide a great chat room for the visitors to discuss on your website or web application. You can tailor YShout’s appearance to fit your website perfectly by using CSS. YShout 5 features a completely rebuilt control panel. It contains some new preferences, as well as a lot of returning favorites.

Requirements: PHP and Javascript
Demo: http://geekchat.net/yshout5/example/
License: Donationware

4) Create Your Own Video Conferences with Tinychat

Video conferencing typically requiring cumbersome downloads, logins, and endless contact lists, it too often becomes a service that is slow and unreliable.

Tinychat delivers dead simple video conferences without the extraneous ad-ons and inconvenience, making video conferencing an accessible, uncomplicated experience. You can have up to twelve people in a room with HQ video, protected by passwords and moderators, share your desktop with them, and your conferences can be recorded and embedded on your website.

Tinychat is the ultimate meeting solution for those who want to meet without stress and hassle. The Developer API is available and able to return information in both JSON and XML about a specific room as well.

Requirements: Firefox, IE, Safari, and Chrome
Demo: http://tinychat.com/
License: License Free

5) An Approach to Ad Hoc, Linear Dialogue in Realtime

Anologue is an approach to ad hoc, linear dialogue in realtime. With anologue you can quickly and easily engage in an anonymous (or not) linear dialogue with any number of people (within reason). There is no accounts or installations required. Your “chat room” is created by the time this link loads.

Best of all: Anologue is open source. built with php 5.3.1, using the most non-heinous, totally rad lithium framework, couchdb, jquery, a few other scripts as well as some classy, original and established iconography for ui; all coming together for the conversational goodness you’re about to experience.

Requirements: PHP 5.3, CouchDB, rad-dev account
Demo: http://anologue.com/add
License: BSD License

6) Google Talk Chatback- A Real Instant Message Session

Do you have a blog, online profile, or some other personal web page? Would you like to communicate more with your visitors? Google has launched a new Google Talk feature that lets visitors to your web site chat with you. They call it chatback because instead of you doing all the talking on your blog, your visitors can talk back to you. Sure, they could leave comments, but those are public and hard to use for a real conversation. With chatback, it’s a real instant message session.

To use chatback, you must have a Google Talk account, but your visitors don’t have to! You can use it on any web page that you can add HTML content to. To get started, visit the chatback start page. Then just copy the provided HTML snippet to your web site. Visitors will then see a badge on your site indicating your availability, and can click to start a chat with you.

Requirements: -
Demo: http://www.google.com/talk/service/badge/New
License: License Free

7) Nurph – Real-Time Chat on Your Website

Nurph puts Real-Time Chat on your website. ‘Nurph’ any URL by entering it in the URL Box, or by using the Bookmark, and Nurph puts a real-time chat on top of the page. There is no installation required. Just enter a URL, promote it and chat.

You can also promote your Nurph URL across the Web, email, Facebook and Twitter. For example, how about linking to Nurph on your Twitter profile? When people visit your Twitter profile, they can click your Bio URL, Login via Twitter, and join your virtual hangout to chat with you in real-time!

Nurph has just launched in public beta testing. You can start Nurphing right away but please note that the service may be subject to change.

Requirements: -
Demo: http://nur.ph/
License: License Free

8) Open Source Ajax XHTML Chat

XHTML Chat is barely more then a single html page + CSS + javascript. The server side bit is as small as it can be and could be accomplished with almost any available technology (down to php + textfile). This looks very well revolutionise the way the web looks and feels today.
Apart from this being a chat you can use XHTML Chat as:

• An advanced comment function for blogs offering immediate communication between users.
• An advanced shoutbox.
• A live single/multi-user publishing system.
• A XHTML Broadcasting tool for live coverage of events.

All of these could degrade gracefully if javascript is not available. XHTML Chat (including XHTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, all images) ,is licensed under a Creative Commons License as well.

Requirements: -
Demo: http://chat.plasticshore.com/
License: Creative Commons License

9) Web-based Chat Application with PHP and jQuery

Nettus has published a tutorial of “How to Create A Simple Web-based Chat Application“. In the tutorial we will be creating a simple web-based chat application with PHP and jQuery. This sort of utility would be perfect for a live support system for your website.

The chat application includes a login and logout system, AJAX-style features, and will also offer support for multiple users. Also, you can work off this and build a multiple chat rooms, add an administrative backend, add emoticons, etc…

Requirements: jQuery Framework
Demo: http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/javascript-ajax/how-to-create-a-simple…
License: License Free

10) Add Social & Engagement Widgets with TicketMy’s Socialbar

TicketMy’s Socialbar makes your website social, interactive and engaging by offering a range of social and engagement widgets, with lots of customization and embedding options. It includes more than 20 useful applications,  including a multi-IM chatting widget that rivals Meebo. It also provides extensive Facebook and twitter integration for websites to have increased stickiness, user traction and engagement.

You can also track the social sharing and engagement of the users with the provided social analytics. Best of all, TicketMy’s Socialbar is totally Free, served from Amazon’s CloudFront CDN and loads in less than 2 seconds.

TicketMy’s Socialbar can be added to a site by simply embedding a few lines in the HTML of the site in a matter of minutes. And it is very easy to add to any blogging or CMS platform, with drop-in plugins available for Wordpress, Blogger, Joomla, Drupal, Movable type, Tumblr, Ning and etc.

Requirements: -
Demo: http://www.ticketmy.com/bumpin/socialbar/
License: Free

11) Ajax Im Free Instant Messaging Client for Your Website

Ajax im is a browser-based instant messaging client that you can use it freely on your website projects or web applications. It uses the XMLHTTPRequest object in JavaScript to send and receive commands to and from the server. No refreshing of the page is ever needed for this “web application” to work, as everything is updated in real-time via JavaScript. It is very easy to install and the user interface is so elegant.

Requirements: Internet Explorer 6+, Firefox 1.5+, Opera 9+, Safari
Demo: http://www.ajaxim.com ( Username: test Passowrd: test )
License: BSD License