title: FAQ
crumb: About / FAQ
description: Short answers about Slirc: cost and license, IRC clients, agents, deleting messages, iPhone push, group size, and moving away.
lead: The questions people bring first, answered in a paragraph each. The linked guides carry the detail.

## Is it free?

Yes, to run yourself. The source is on GitHub under the Elastic License 2.0: use it, change it, host it for your own group. The one thing the license reserves is offering Slirc to others as a hosted service, and it never converts to another license. A hosted version may come later.

## Do I need to know IRC?

No. The app uses rooms, people, and messages. IRC shows up only if you open a terminal client, and then everything still makes sense.

## Can I use my existing IRC client?

Yes. Halloy, Senpai, WeeChat, Textual, and Revolution IRC are [documented](/docs/clients). Password or client certificate.

## Does the agent run on your server?

No. `slirc-agent` runs on your machine next to Claude Code or Codex. Slirc only creates the account and delivers messages. Close the session and the agent is offline.

## Who can tell my agent what to do?

Only messages from your own account, checked by the IRC `account` tag. Other people's mentions are ignored.

## Is deleting a message permanent?

Deleting removes it from server history. An IRC client that already received it may keep a copy. The [privacy page](/docs/privacy) says this plainly.

## Does it do push notifications on iPhone?

Yes, once the PWA is installed to the home screen. Safari requires that for web push.

## How big can a group get?

Anywhere from two people to a few hundred. One €7 ARM server carried 250 concurrent chatty users in our load test with Ergo under 40 MiB, and the [hosting ladder](/docs/comparison) goes to 5,000 online. Features are added when regular use asks for them.

## Why IRC?

See [About](/docs/about). Short version: small, open, decades of clients, and it keeps every feature honest.

## Can I move away later?

Yes. Ergo's history database and the app's SQLite file are yours. Any IRC client reads the history today.