Comparison to other bots

This is an incomplete comparison of Willie, jenni, phenny, Supybot, and eggdrop. With Supybot and Eggdrop, only limited research was done, so some information may be incorrect or missing.

Core features

Feature	Willie	jenni	phenny	Supybot	Eggdrop
Language	Python 2.7	Python 2.4-2.7	Python 2.4-2.7	Python 2.3-2.7	C, Tcl
OS Support	Cross-platform	Linux	?	Cross-platform	Cross-platform
License	EFLv2	EFLv2	EFLv2	BSD 2-clause	GPL
Last stable release	4.1.0; November 2013	N/A	N/A	0.83.4.1; September 2012	1.6.21; October 2011
Download sources	Fedora repos, AUR, PyPI, Git, tarball	Git, tarball	Git, tarball	Multiple Linux distro repos, Git, tarball	Multiple Linux distro repos, CVS, tarball
Unicode support	Yes	Limited	Limited	?	No
Dynamic module reloading	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	?
Documented module API	Online and in package	No	No	In package	No
API usability	Very simple, IDE friendly	Very simple	Very simple	Complex, IDE friendly	Complex
SSL support	Yes	No	No	Yes	With patch
Quickstart wizard	Yes	No	No	Yes	No
Configuration	INI-like, dynamic	Python, static	Python, static	Flat text	Flat text
Daemonizable	Yes	No	No	Yes	?
Daemonizable with systemd	Yes	No	No	No	No
Persistent user/channel settings database	Yes	No	No	Yes	No
Safe inter-module communication	Yes	No	No	?	No
RFC-compliant nick comparison	Yes	No	No	?	?
Command rate-limiting	Yes	Yes	No	?	?
Commands can override their rate limit (e.g. on failure)	Yes	No	N/A	?	?
Bot administration authentication	nick, hostmask	nick, hostmask	nick	?	?
Channel administration authentication	IRC modes	Freenode services	N/A	?	?
Unit testing system for core functionality	Yes	No	No	?	?
Unit testing system for user modules	Yes	No	No	?	?
Block Disruptive Users	Yes	Yes	No	?	?
IRCv3 support (including SASL authentication)	Yes	No	No	No	No
IPv6	Yes	No	No	Yes	?

1. phenny and jenni do not have discrete versioned releases. They are available as git repos or snapshot tarballs only.
2. Support is available in development, and is to be included in the next release.

Module features

This section currently only compares between Willie, jenni, and phenny.

Feature	Willie	jenni	phenny
Dynamic topic masks	Yes	No	No
Clock with per-user time zones	Yes, dynamic zones	Yes, static zones	Yes, static zones
Clock with per-channel time zones	Yes, dynamic zones	No	No
Weather information	Yahoo!, configurable default location	NOAA	NOAA
Meeting bot	Yes	No	No

Information provided for URLs

Feature	Willie	jenni	phenny
Bugzilla bug data	Yes	No	No
Reddit post/user data	Yes	No	No
YouTube video data	Yes	No	No
Redmine ticket data	Third-party	No	No
Title	Yes	Yes	Yes