I had been playing around with IRC clients recently. I started getting on IRC more often since I got access to a soju bouncer hosted by loang.net. Bouncers are really useful, but unfortunately, there aren't many clients that fully integrate itself with bouncers. In case of soju, there is senpai, a terminal IRC client that has built-in integration for it.

To connect to bouncers on other clients, you can refer to this page on IRCNow. They provide a pretty long list of clients and a guide for each of them. The guides can be applied for both ZNC and soju.

{{< figure src="https://imgur.com/B8TIr17.png" title="An example for soju bouncers on Hexchat" >}}

You will have to create a separate network for each server you want to connect. For Hexchat users, I recommend editing the network list directly at $HOME/.config/hexchat/servlist.conf since it would be faster to edit with a text editor.

Of course, read the documentations of your bouncers! Some clients cannot use bouncers at all. For soju, check out this page.