Open Realtime
Ignite Realtime is the community site for the users and developers of open source Real Time Communications projects like Openfire, Smack, Spark, and Pàdé. Your involvement is helping to change the open RTC landscape.
The Ignite Realtime community is happy to announce a new release of its open source, real-time communications server server Openfire! Version 5.0.4 continues our effort to provide stable 5.0.x series releases whilst we finalize work on an upcoming 5.1.0 release. Please refer to the full changelog for more details.
You can obtain the new version of Openfire for your platform from its download page. The sha256sum values for the release artifacts are:
c49add8f50999b2d7fcdd8960bc7d70bf59eb95d12daedf92902e4b034c1c737 openfire-5.0.4-1.noarch.rpm
14d22bef24fb01770f51c655c8b3b54207125b1b70641175d8ad25b585e6332a openfire_5.0.4_all.deb
ddd40e0bac4c4fae0678b6df4fd5ad28f77af50fd530e3327326f3b488f16ae4 openfire_5_0_4.dmg
8c2fcb27f9afe01b79d59f7bf0736b21cdb72b5464de25a183b596329e351099 openfire_5_0_4.exe
01c7314268d87b1f8eee0677bb89656f12a082e6461b207d3955f5d9632e2f78 openfire_5_0_4.tar.gz
13b579672b2ce238934aa919cd968636c0f5c8afda5aeb3aec08d60feca35df4 openfire_5_0_4_x64.exe
05b9e5fa976202ef97d183177f6de699cf68bf0cfd422f721a4c8dc5676c1612 openfire_5_0_4.zip
For those of you that enjoy metrics, here’s an accounting of 5.0.3 release artifact downloads.
| Name | OS | Downloads |
|---|---|---|
| openfire_5_0_3_x64.exe | Windows 64bit Launcher | 12,407 |
| openfire_5_0_3.exe | Windows 32bit Launcher | 8,269 |
| openfire_5.0.3_all.deb | Linux Deb | 8,113 |
| openfire_5_0_3.zip | Zip binary | 6,747 |
| openfire-5.0.3-1.noarch.rpm | Linux RPM | 5,811 |
| openfire_5_0_3.tar.gz | Tar.gz binary | 5,773 |
| openfire_5_0_3.dmg | Mac | 4,646 |
| Total | – | 51,766 |
We’d love to hear from you! Please join our community forum or group chat and let us know what you think!
For other release announcements and news follow us on Mastodon or X
I am excited to share that members of the IgniteRealtime community will be heading to Brussels, Belgium, from January 29th to February 1st to take part in two important events for the open-source and real-time communications ecosystem: the annual XSF Summit and FOSDEM.
XSF Summit: Connecting the XMPP community
The XSF Summit, organized by the XMPP Standards Foundation, brings together developers, maintainers, and contributors from across the XMPP ecosystem. IgniteRealtime community members will be there to collaborate with peers, discuss the current state and future direction of XMPP, and share insights from ongoing IgniteRealtime projects.
These face-to-face discussions are invaluable for aligning on standards, exchanging implementation experience, and strengthening the relationships that keep open, decentralized communication thriving.
FOSDEM: Celebrating open source at scale
Following the XSF Summit, our community members will also attend FOSDEM (Free and Open source Software Developers’ European Meeting), one of the largest and most influential open-source conferences in the world.
FOSDEM is a unique opportunity to:
- Learn about the latest developments across a wide range of open-source technologies
- Meet contributors and users from diverse projects and communities
- Represent IgniteRealtime and real-time communication technologies within the broader open-source ecosystem
You’ll likely find us at the XMPP & Realtime Lounge (building AW, level 1).
Meet us in Brussels
If you’re attending the XSF Summit, FOSDEM, or will be in Brussels during this time, we’d love to connect. These events are a great chance to meet fellow IgniteRealtime users and contributors, exchange ideas, and talk about where we’re headed next.
We look forward to productive discussions, new connections, and bringing fresh energy and ideas back to the IgniteRealtime community. See you in Brussels! 
For other release announcements and news follow us on Mastodon or X
As the year draws to a close and the holiday season surrounds us with warmth and joy, I wanted to take a moment to look back at what an incredible journey 2025 has been for the Ignite Realtime community.
This year we’ve seen so much activity, innovation, and collective effort across our projects and forums. From major releases to exciting technical explorations, the contributions from developers, documenters, testers, and users have reminded me (time and again) what makes this community special.
Looking back through the year’s blog posts and discussions, a few moments stand out:
- Openfire 5.x Series: We welcomed multiple releases within the 5.0 line. From the early beta builds to the full releases of Openfire 5.0.0 and 5.0.1, to the stability-focused 5.0.2 and most recently 5.0.3. These milestones are the result of countless hours of debugging, testing, and refinement.
- New Features & Plugins: Several new features and plugins made their way into our ecosystem, like the Push Server plugin and advancements in XEP-0483 for HTTP Online Meetings, expanding what’s possible with our projects.
- Smack Community Progress: The continued evolution of Smack was marked by the 4.5.0 Release Candidate, giving developers an even stronger foundation for building XMPP clients.
- Broadening Perspectives: Insightful posts on interoperability, WebRTC audio/video integration, and real-world use cases highlighted the vibrant technical discourse happening here.
- Community Recognition: It was also wonderful to celebrate achievements beyond our own projects - like members being elected to roles within the broader XMPP Standards Foundation.
All these efforts show not just code being written, but ideas shared, challenges overcome, and friendships formed along the way. What’s especially meaningful to me isn’t just the software we build, but how we build it: together. Whether it’s through lively technical threads, helping a newcomer in chat, or sharing a blog post that unpacks a tricky feature, this community genuinely embodies open collaboration.
The forums, blogs, and group chats are more than repositories of knowledge - they’re where we connect, learn from one another, and celebrate each success together.
So, as we step into the holidays and prepare for the new year, I want to express my deepest gratitude:
Thank you to every contributor, big or small, for your time, passion, and patience.
Thank you to those who reported bugs, wrote documentation, asked questions, or helped others find answers.
And thank you to every user who deploys, experiments with, or builds on Ignite Realtime software: you give our work purpose.
Here’s to 2026! May the coming year bring even more collaboration, innovation, and joy. Whether you’re building a new feature, solving a tricky XMPP problem, or just dropping into the group chat to say hello. We’ll be glad to see you there!
Wishing you all a happy holiday season and a wonderful New Year!
The IgniteRealtime community is happy to announce a new release of its open source, real-time communications server server Openfire! Version 5.0.3 brings a number of stability improvements and bug fixes. Notably, a number of improvements were made to Multi-User Chatroom (MUC). Please refer to the full changelog for more details.
You can obtain the new version of Openfire for your platform from its download page. The checksums for the binaries are:
a08493cb19bef6dd2b51ebe88d4ffd121553e2e4473ddbecf94f5ff350e367aa openfire-5.0.3-1.noarch.rpm
3dd1e9de84d6b177f3b890bea7d6cd88359698bd82c2e656d4b937a8ef7af96e openfire_5.0.3_all.deb
b3674baa3ab53a1f61db8846c3cdd16ce211917c4df3cee2d4a46fbba265ea76 openfire_5_0_3.dmg
cfabc92ab9e473e71f42ec40533a5d4ae7a9c1dc5ebd060784ce434ae1ba6c12 openfire_5_0_3.exe
fb13bd4e0aff7bd6cc16d78e6f2c35d8b59a95e4f4f886d353265306f151ec45 openfire_5_0_3.tar.gz
dcad510a8a7fda677b07281d08ebb29017555944eeb41c98fb4f38c743a341c4 openfire_5_0_3_x64.exe
0ee9a0837e75b785a40653f78b94a900431067f8a9d2bac5104d2971c46a9779 openfire_5_0_3.zip
For those of you that enjoy metrics, here’s an accounting of 5.0.2 release artifact downloads.
| Name | OS | Downloads |
|---|---|---|
| openfire_5_0_2_x64.exe | Windows 64bit Launcher | 13,250 |
| openfire_5_0_2.exe | Windows 32bit Launcher | 8,906 |
| openfire_5.0.2_all.deb | Linux Deb | 8,171 |
| openfire_5_0_2.zip | Zip binary | 6,895 |
| openfire_5_0_2.tar.gz | Tar.gz binary | 6,331 |
| openfire-5.0.2-1.noarch.rpm | Linux RPM | 6,004 |
| openfire_5_0_2.dmg | Mac | 4,868 |
| Total | – | 54,425 |
We’d love to hear from you! Please join our community forum or group chat and let us know what you think!
For other release announcements and news follow us on Mastodon or X
The Smack developers are happy to announce the availability the first release candidate (RC) of Smack 4.5.0.
The upcoming Smack 4.5 release contains many bug fixes and improvements. Please consider testing this release candidate in your integration stages and report back any issues you may found. The more people are actively testing release candidates, the less issues will remain in the actual release.
Smack 4.5.0-rc1 is now available on Maven Central.
daryl herzmann in "
Abbas Naqdi in "
Michele in "
Zillow in "
bmccartney in "