Both iChat and Adium are AIM clients that connect to the million user network. I find that Adium is better then iChat for a number of reasons. It seems to be a lot less buggy and has fewer quirks. It also has tabbed windows and gives you insane control.

iChat seems to be very buggy and half the time crashes. For the last few months, when someone IMed me who wasn't on my buddy list I couldn't IM them back and it wouldn't let me add them to my buddy list. Right after the beta came out, I tried to do something with the groups and for some reason deleted half my buddy list.

iChat might be better because it has microphone support and video chat. Sure, those features are good, but not when only 3 percent of the world has a Mac, much less OS X and iChat. Besides that, you have to have special equipment to do just that, and frankly it just isn't worth it to spend $200 on iSight.

In terms of features, Adium wins. The only thing that might be appealing in iChat is video and microphone chat. But as stated above, almost no one has that capability. I've only managed to find 1 other person who had a microphone.

Sure, iChat is made by Apple, but that doesn't mean it's the only choice out there. So from what I see, Adium is the best way to go.

• Over all: 6/10
• Features: 4/10
• Interface 8/10

• Over all: 9/10
• Features: 10/10
• Interface 9/10