Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP, originally named Jabber) is an

open Open or OPEN may refer to: Music * Open (band), Australian pop/rock band * The Open (band), English indie rock band * ''Open'' (Blues Image album), 1969 * ''Open'' (Gotthard album), 1999 * ''Open'' (Cowboy Junkies album), 2001 * ''Open'' (YF ...

communication protocol A communication protocol is a system of rules that allows two or more entities of a communications system to transmit information via any kind of variation of a physical quantity. The protocol defines the rules, syntax, semantics (computer scien ...

designed for

instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...

(IM), presence information, and

contact list A contact list is a collection of screen names. It is a commonplace feature of instant messaging, Email clients, online games and mobile phones. It has various trademarked and proprietary names in different contexts. Contacts lists' windows s ...

maintenance. Based on

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable ...

(Extensible Markup Language), it enables the

near-real-time Real-time computing (RTC) is the computer science term for hardware and software systems subject to a "real-time constraint", for example from event to system response. Real-time programs must guarantee response within specified time constrai ...

exchange of structured data between two or more network entities. Designed to be

extensible Extensibility is a software engineering and systems design principle that provides for future growth. Extensibility is a measure of the ability to extend a system and the level of effort required to implement the extension. Extensions can be t ...

, the protocol offers a multitude of applications beyond traditional IM in the broader realm of

message-oriented middleware Message-oriented middleware (MOM) is software or hardware infrastructure supporting sending and receiving messages between distributed systems. MOM allows application modules to be distributed over heterogeneous platforms and reduces the comple ...

, including signalling for

VoIP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet t ...

, video,

file transfer File transfer is the transmission of a computer file through a communication channel from one computer system to another. Typically, file transfer is mediated by a communications protocol. In the history of computing, numerous file transfer protocol ...

gaming Gaming may refer to: Games and sports The act of playing games, as in: * Legalized gambling, playing games of chance for money, often referred to in law as "gaming" * Playing a role-playing game, in which players assume fictional roles * Playin ...

and other uses. Unlike most commercial instant messaging protocols, XMPP is defined in an

open standard An open standard is a standard that is openly accessible and usable by anyone. It is also a prerequisite to use open license, non-discrimination and extensibility. Typically, anybody can participate in the development. There is no single definition ...

in the

application layer An application layer is an abstraction layer that specifies the shared communications protocols and Interface (computing), interface methods used by Host (network), hosts in a communications network. An ''application layer'' abstraction is speci ...

. The architecture of the XMPP network is similar to

email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...

; anyone can run their own XMPP server and there is no central master server. This federated open system approach allows users to interoperate with others on any server using a 'JID' user account, similar to an email address. XMPP implementations can be developed using any software license and many server, client, and library implementations are distributed as

free and open-source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

. Numerous

freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the f ...

and

commercial software Commercial software, or seldom payware, is a computer software that is produced for sale or that serves commercial purposes. Commercial software can be proprietary software or free and open-source software. Background and challenge While sof ...

implementations also exist. Originally developed by the open-source community, the protocols were formalized as an approved instant messaging standard in 2004 and has been continuously developed with new extensions and features. Various XMPP client software are available on both desktop and mobile platforms and devices - by 2003 the protocol was used by over ten million people worldwide on the network, according to the

XMPP Standards Foundation XMPP Standards Foundation (XSF) is the foundation in charge of the standardization of the protocol extensions of XMPP, the open standard of instant messaging and presence of the IETF. History The XSF was originally called the Jabber Software ...

Protocol characteristics

Decentralization

The XMPP network architecture is reminiscent of the

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is an Internet standard communication protocol for electronic mail transmission. Mail servers and other message transfer agents use SMTP to send and receive mail messages. User-level email clients typica ...

(SMTP), a client–server model; clients do not talk directly to one another as it is decentralized - anyone can run a server. By design, there is no central authoritative server as there is with messaging services such as AIM, WLM,

WhatsApp WhatsApp (also called WhatsApp Messenger) is an internationally available freeware, cross-platform, centralized instant messaging (IM) and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by American company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook). It allows us ...

Telegram Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas p ...

. Some confusion often arises on this point as there is a public XMPP server being run at jabber.org, to which many users subscribe. However, anyone may run their own XMPP server on their own domain.

Addressing

Every user on the network has a unique XMPP address, called ''JID'' (for historical reasons, XMPP addresses are often called ''Jabber IDs''). The JID is structured like an

email address An email address identifies an email box to which messages are delivered. While early messaging systems used a variety of formats for addressing, today, email addresses follow a set of specific rules originally standardized by the Internet Engineer ...

with a username and a

domain name A domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. As ...

(or

IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.. Updated by . An IP address serves two main functions: network interface ident ...

) for the server where that user resides, separated by an

at sign The at sign, , is normally read aloud as "at"; it is also commonly called the at symbol, commercial at, or address sign. It is used as an accounting and invoice abbreviation meaning "at a rate of" (e.g. 7 widgets @ £2 per widget = £14), but ...

(@) - for example, “alice@example.com“: here alice is the username and example.com the server with which the user is registered. Since a user may wish to log in from multiple locations, they may specify a resource. A resource identifies a particular client belonging to the user (for example home, work, or mobile). This may be included in the JID by appending a slash followed by the name of the resource. For example, the full JID of a user's mobile account could be username@example.com/mobile. Each resource may have specified a numerical value called priority. Messages simply sent to username@example.com will go to the client with highest priority, but those sent to username@example.com/mobile will go ''only'' to the mobile client. The highest priority is the one with largest numerical value. JIDs without a username part are also valid, and may be used for system messages and control of special features on the server. A resource remains optional for these JIDs as well. The means to route messages based on a logical endpoint identifier - the JID, instead of by an explicit IP Address present opportunities to use XMPP as an

Overlay network An overlay network is a computer network that is layered on top of another network. Structure Nodes in the overlay network can be thought of as being connected by virtual or logical links, each of which corresponds to a path, perhaps through ...

implementation on top of different underlay networks.

XMPP via HTTP

The original and "native" transport protocol for XMPP is

Transmission Control Protocol The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is one of the main protocols of the Internet protocol suite. It originated in the initial network implementation in which it complemented the Internet Protocol (IP). Therefore, the entire suite is commonly ...

(TCP), using open-ended XML streams over long-lived TCP connections. As an alternative to the TCP transport, the XMPP community has also developed an

HTTP The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, ...

transport for web clients as well as users behind restricted firewalls. In the original specification, XMPP could use HTTP in two ways: ''polling'' and ''binding''. The polling method, now deprecated, essentially implies messages stored on a server-side database are being fetched (and posted) regularly by an XMPP client by way of HTTP 'GET' and 'POST' requests. The binding method, implemented using ''Bidirectional-streams Over Synchronous HTTP'' (

BOSH Bosh or BOSH may refer to: * BOSH (protocol), a transport protocol in computer networking * Bosh (band), a Christian rock band from Bournemouth, United Kingdom *Bosh (rapper), French rapper * BOSH (software), a project for release engineering, dep ...

), allows servers to push messages to clients as soon as they are sent. This push model of notification is more efficient than polling, where many of the polls return no new data. Because the client uses HTTP, most firewalls allow clients to fetch and post messages without any hindrances. Thus, in scenarios where the TCP port used by XMPP is blocked, a server can listen on the normal HTTP port and the traffic should pass without problems. Various websites let people sign into XMPP via a browser. Furthermore, there are open public servers that listen on standard http (port 80) and https (port 443) ports, and hence allow connections from behind most firewalls. However, the IANA-registered port for BOSH is actually 5280, not 80.

Extensibility

The

or XSF (formerly the Jabber Software Foundation) is active in developing open XMPP extensions, so called ''XEP''. However, extensions can also be defined by any individual, software project, or organization. To maintain interoperability, common extensions are managed by the XSF. XMPP applications beyond IM include:

chat room The term chat room, or chatroom (and sometimes group chat; abbreviated as GC), is primarily used to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing. The term can thus mean any technology, ranging from ...

network management Network management is the process of administering and managing computer networks. Services provided by this discipline include fault analysis, performance management, provisioning of networks and maintaining quality of service. Network managem ...

content syndication Web syndication is a form of Broadcast syndication, syndication in which content is made available from one website to other sites. Most commonly, websites are made available to provide either summaries or full renditions of a website's recently ad ...

, collaboration tools,

file sharing File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents or electronic books. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include r ...

, gaming, remote systems control and monitoring,

geolocation Geopositioning, also known as geotracking, geolocalization, geolocating, geolocation, or geoposition fixing, is the process of determining or estimating the geographic position of an object. Geopositioning yields a set of Geographic coordinate s ...

middleware Middleware is a type of computer software that provides services to software applications beyond those available from the operating system. It can be described as "software glue". Middleware makes it easier for software developers to implement co ...

and

cloud computing Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage ( cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over mul ...

, VoIP, and identity services. Building on its capability to support discovery across local network domains, XMPP is well-suited for

where virtual machines, networks, and firewalls would otherwise present obstacles to alternative service discovery and presence-based solutions. Cloud computing and storage systems rely on various forms of communication over multiple levels, including not only messaging between systems to relay state but also the migration or distribution of larger objects, such as storage or virtual machines. Along with authentication and in-transit data protection, XMPP can be applied at a variety of levels and may prove ideal as an extensible middleware or

Message-oriented middleware Message-oriented middleware (MOM) is software or hardware infrastructure supporting sending and receiving messages between distributed systems. MOM allows application modules to be distributed over heterogeneous platforms and reduces the comple ...

(MOM) protocol.

Current limitations

At the moment, XMPP does not support Quality of Service (QoS); assured delivery of messages has to be built on top of the XMPP layer. There are two XEPs proposed to deal with this issue, XEP-0184 Message delivery receipts which is currently a draft standard, and XEP-0333 Chat Markers which is considered experimental. Since XML is text based, normal XMPP has a higher network overhead compared to purely binary solutions. This issue was being addressed by the experimental XEP-0322: Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) Format, where XML is serialized in a very efficient binary manner, especially in schema-informed mode. This XEP is currently deferred. In-band binary data transfer is limited.

Binary data Binary data is data whose unit can take on only two possible states. These are often labelled as 0 and 1 in accordance with the binary numeral system and Boolean algebra. Binary data occurs in many different technical and scientific fields, wher ...

must be first

base64 In computer programming, Base64 is a group of binary-to-text encoding schemes that represent binary data (more specifically, a sequence of 8-bit bytes) in sequences of 24 bits that can be represented by four 6-bit Base64 digits. Common to all bina ...

encoded before it can be transmitted in-band. Therefore, any significant amount of binary data (e.g.,

s) is best transmitted

out-of-band Out-of-band activity is activity outside a defined telecommunications frequency band, or, metaphorically, outside of any primary communication channel. Protection from falsing is among its purposes. Examples General usage * Out-of-band agreement ...

, using in-band messages to coordinate. The best example of this is the

Jingle A jingle is a short song or tune used in advertising and for other commercial uses. Jingles are a form of sound branding. A jingle contains one or more hooks and meaning that explicitly promote the product or service being advertised, usually t ...

XMPP Extension Protocol, XEP-0166.

Features

Peer-to-peer sessions

Using the extension called

, XMPP can provide an open means to support

machine-to-machine Machine to machine (M2M) is direct communication between devices using any communications channel, including wired and wireless. Machine to machine communication can include industrial instrumentation, enabling a sensor or meter to communicate th ...

peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer n ...

communications across a diverse set of networks. This feature is mainly used for

IP telephony Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet ...

(VoIP).

Multi-user chat

XMPP supports conferences with multiple users, using the specification Multi-User Chat (MUC) (XEP-0045). From the point of view of a normal user, it is comparable to

Internet Relay Chat Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging. IRC is designed for group communication in discussion forums, called ''channels'', but also allows one-on-one communication via private messages as well as chat and ...

(IRC).

Security and encryption

XMPP servers can be isolated (e.g., on a company intranet), and secure authentication ( SASL) and point-to-point encryption ( TLS) have been built into the core XMPP specifications, as well as Off-the-Record Messaging (OTR) is an extension of XMPP enabling encryption of messages and data. It has since been replaced by a better extension, multi-end-to-multi-end encryption (

OMEMO OMEMO is an extension to the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) for multi-client end-to-end encryption developed by Andreas Straub. According to Straub, OMEMO uses the Double Ratchet Algorithm "to provide multi-end to multi-end enc ...

, XEP-0384) end-to-end encryption between users. This gives a higher level of security, by encrypting all data from the source client and decrypting again at the target client; the server operator cannot decrypt the data they are forwarding. Messages can also be encrypted with

OpenPGP Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) is an encryption program that provides cryptographic privacy and authentication for data communication. PGP is used for signing, encrypting, and decrypting texts, e-mails, files, directories, and whole disk partiti ...

, for example with the software

Gajim Gajim is an instant messaging client for the XMPP protocol which uses the GTK toolkit. The name Gajim is a recursive acronym for ''Gajim's a jabber instant messenger''. Gajim runs on Linux, BSD, macOS, and Microsoft Windows. Released under the ...

Service discovery

While several

service discovery Service discovery is the process of automatically detecting devices and services on a computer network. This reduces the need for manual configuration by users and administrators. A service discovery protocol (SDP) is a network protocol that hel ...

protocols exist today (such as

zeroconf Zero-configuration networking (zeroconf) is a set of technologies that automatically creates a usable computer network based on the Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) when computers or network peripherals are interconnected. It does not require manu ...

or the

Service Location Protocol The Service Location Protocol (SLP, srvloc) is a service discovery protocol that allows computers and other devices to find services in a local area network without prior configuration. SLP has been designed to scale from small, unmanaged networks ...

), XMPP provides a solid base for the discovery of services residing locally or across a network, and the availability of these services (via presence information), as specified by XEP-0030 DISCO.

Connecting to other protocols

One of the original design goals of the early Jabber open-source community was enabling users to connect to multiple instant messaging systems (especially non-XMPP systems) through a single client application. This was done through entities called ''transports'' or ''gateways'' to other instant messaging protocols like ICQ, AIM or

Yahoo Messenger Yahoo! Messenger (sometimes abbreviated Y!M) was an advertisement-supported instant messaging client and associated protocol provided by Yahoo!. Yahoo! Messenger was provided free of charge and could be downloaded and used with a generic "Yahoo ...

, but also to protocols such as

SMS Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...

IRC Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging. IRC is designed for group communication in discussion forums, called '' channels'', but also allows one-on-one communication via private messages as well as chat an ...

. Unlike multi-protocol clients, XMPP provides this access at the server level by communicating via special gateway services running alongside an XMPP server. Any user can "register" with one of these gateways by providing the information needed to log on to that network, and can then communicate with users of that network as though they were XMPP users. Thus, such gateways function as client proxies (the gateway authenticates on the user's behalf on the non-XMPP service). As a result, any client that fully supports XMPP can access any network with a gateway without extra code in the client, and without the need for the client to have direct access to the Internet. However, the client proxy model may violate terms of service on the protocol used (although such terms of service are not legally enforceable in several countries) and also requires the user to send their IM username and password to the third-party site that operates the transport (which may raise privacy and security concerns). Another type of gateway is a server-to-server gateway, which enables a non-XMPP server deployment to connect to native XMPP servers using the built in interdomain federation features of XMPP. Such server-to-server gateways are offered by several enterprise IM software products, including: *

IBM Lotus Sametime HCL Sametime Premium (formerly IBM Sametime and IBM Lotus Sametime) is a client–server application and middleware platform that provides real-time, unified communications and collaboration for enterprises. Those capabilities include presence i ...

Skype for Business Server Skype for Business Server (formerly Microsoft Office Communications Server and Microsoft Lync Server) is real-time communications server software that provides the infrastructure for enterprise instant messaging, presence, VoIP, ad hoc and st ...

(formerly named Microsoft Lync Server and Microsoft Office Communications Server – OCS)

Software

XMPP is implemented by many clients, servers, and code libraries. These implementations are provided under a variety of software licenses.

Servers

Numerous XMPP server software exist, some well known ones include

ejabberd ejabberd is an Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) application server and an MQ Telemetry Transport (MQTT) broker, written mainly in the Erlang programming language. It can run under several Unix-like operating systems such as ma ...

and Prosody.

Clients

A large number of XMPP client software exist on various modern and legacy platforms, including both graphical and command line based clients. According to the XMPP website, some of the most popular software include

Conversations Conversation is interactive communication between two or more people. The development of conversational skills and etiquette is an important part of socialization. The development of conversational skills in a new language is a frequent focus ...

(Android), Converse.js (web browser, Linux, Windows, macOS),

(Windows, Linux), Monal (macOS, iOS), and Swift.IM (macOS, Windows, Linux). Other clients include:

Bombus A bumblebee (or bumble bee, bumble-bee, or humble-bee) is any of over 250 species in the genus ''Bombus'', part of Apidae, one of the bee families. This genus is the only extant group in the tribe Bombini, though a few extinct related gener ...

, ChatSecure, Coccinella, JWChat.org, MCabber,

Miranda NG Miranda NG is an open-source multiprotocol instant messaging application, designed for Microsoft Windows. Miranda NG is free software distributed under the GNU GPL-2.0-or-later. History In May 2012 Miranda IM was forked to Miranda NG (New G ...

Pidgin A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified means of communication that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn from s ...

Psi Psi, PSI or Ψ may refer to: Alphabetic letters * Psi (Greek) (Ψ, ψ), the 23rd letter of the Greek alphabet * Psi (Cyrillic) (Ѱ, ѱ), letter of the early Cyrillic alphabet, adopted from Greek Arts and entertainment * "Psi" as an abbreviatio ...

Tkabber Tkabber is a GPL instant messaging client for the XMPP protocol which uses the Tk toolkit for the GUI. It runs on anything to which Tcl/Tk is ported: almost any X-based system (namely, any Linux and *BSD, Solaris, etc.), Microsoft Windows, a ...

, Trillian, and

Xabber Xabber (from XMPP and Jabber) is a XMPP client for the Android_(operating_system), Android Operating System. It is developed as an open source Project on GitHub and is licensed under the GNU GPL v.3 license. The original developers are from a so ...

Deployment and distribution

There are thousands of XMPP servers worldwide, many public ones as well as private individuals or organizations running their own servers without commercial intent. Numerous websites show a list of public XMPP servers where users may register at (for example on the XMPP.net website). Several large public IM services natively use or used XMPP, including

LiveJournal LiveJournal (russian: Живой Журнал), stylised as LiVEJOURNAL, is a Russian-owned social networking service where users can keep a blog, journal, or diary. American programmer Brad Fitzpatrick started LiveJournal on April 15, 1999, as ...

's "LJ Talk",

Nimbuzz Nimbuzz was a proprietary cross-platform instant messaging and voice-over-IP provider and aggregator for smartphones, tablets and personal computers developed by Kuraakani Online Private Limited, with the origins of its technology dating back ...

, and

HipChat HipChat was a web service for internal private online chat and instant messaging. As well as one-on-one and group/topic chat, it also featured cloud-based file storage, video calling, searchable message-history and inline-image viewing. The soft ...

. Various hosting services, such as

DreamHost DreamHost is a Los Angeles-based web hosting provider and domain name registrar. It is owned by New Dream Network, LLC, founded in 1996 by Dallas Bethune, Josh Jones, Michael Rodriguez and Sage Weil, undergraduate students at Harvey Mudd Coll ...

, enable hosting customers to choose XMPP services alongside more traditional web and email services. Specialized XMPP hosting services also exist in form of

cloud In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol consisting of a visible mass of miniature liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or other particles suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body or similar space. Water or various other chemicals may co ...

so that domain owners need not directly run their own XMPP servers, including

Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, ...

Webex Webex by Cisco is an American company that develops and sells web conferencing, videoconferencing and contact center as a service applications. It was founded as WebEx in 1995 and taken over by Cisco Systems in 2007. Its headquarters are in San ...

Connect, Chrome.pl, Flosoft.biz, i-pobox.net, and hosted.im. XMPP is also used in deployments of non-IM services, including smart grid systems such as demand response applications, message-oriented middleware, and as a replacement for

to provide text messaging on many

smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...

clients.

Non-native deployments

Some of the largest messaging providers use, or have been using, various forms of XMPP based protocols in their backend systems without necessarily exposing this fact to their end users. One example is

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

, which in August 2005 introduced Google Talk, a combination VoIP and IM system that uses XMPP for instant messaging and as a base for a voice and file transfer signaling protocol called

. The initial launch did not include server-to-server communications; Google enabled that feature on January 17, 2006. Google later added video functionality to Google Talk, also using the Jingle protocol for signaling. In May 2013, Google announced XMPP compatibility would be dropped from Google Talk for server-to-server federation, although it would retain client-to-server support. Google talk has since been dropped from Google's line of products. In January 2008, AOL introduced experimental XMPP support for its

AOL Instant Messenger AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) was an instant messaging and presence computer program created by AOL, which used the proprietary OSCAR instant messaging protocol and the TOC protocol to allow registered users to communicate in real time. AIM w ...

(AIM) service, allowing AIM users to communicate using XMPP. However, in March 2008, this service was discontinued. As of May 2011, AOL offers limited XMPP support. In February 2010, the social-networking site

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

opened up its chat feature to third-party applications via XMPP. Some functionality was unavailable through XMPP, and support was dropped in April 2014. Similarly, in December 2011, Microsoft released an XMPP interface to its

Microsoft Messenger service Messenger (formerly MSN Messenger Service, .NET Messenger Service and Windows Live Messenger Service) was an instant messaging and presence system developed by Microsoft in 1999 for use with its MSN Messenger software. It was used by instant me ...

Skype Skype () is a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for VoIP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also has instant messaging, file transfer, deb ...

, its de facto successor, also provided limited XMPP support.

Apache Wave Google Wave, later known as Apache Wave, was a software framework for real-time collaborative editing online. Originally developed by Google and announced on May 28, 2009, it was renamed to ''Apache Wave'' when the project was adopted by the Ap ...

is another example. XMPP is the

de facto standard A ''de facto'' standard is a custom or convention that has achieved a dominant position by public acceptance or market forces (for example, by early entrance to the market). is a Latin phrase (literally " in fact"), here meaning "in practice b ...

for private chat in gaming related platforms such as

Origin Origin(s) or The Origin may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Comics and manga * ''Origin'' (comics), a Wolverine comic book mini-series published by Marvel Comics in 2002 * ''The Origin'' (Buffy comic), a 1999 ''Buffy the Vampire Sl ...

, and

PlayStation is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a divisi ...

, as well as the now discontinued

Xfire Xfire (pronounced "X-Fire") was a proprietary freeware instant messaging service for gamers that also served as a game server browser with various other features. It was available for Microsoft Windows. Xfire was originally developed by Ult ...

and

Raptr Raptr was a social-networking website and instant messenger developed by Raptr, Inc. intended for use by video game players. Dennis Fong, co-founder of Xfire, founded the company Raptr, Inc. in 2007; it is located in Mountain View, California. ...

. Two notable exceptions are

Steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization ...

and

Xbox LIVE The Xbox network, formerly and still sometimes branded as Xbox Live, is an Internet, online multiplayer video game, multiplayer gaming and digital media delivery service created and operated by Microsoft. It was first made available to the Xbox ...

; both use their own

proprietary {{Short pages monitor