I need instant messaging for two thing, communication with specific group of people ($COUNT <= 10) and for controlling bot network (nothing illegal). I want something self-hosted for this. I know two protocols, IRC and XMPP. I'm having hard time deciding what to use. Most comparissons talk either about what mess XMPP protocol is (don't really care) or how IRC scales better (not really issue with 10 people and few bots).
Since IRC is much simpler, I'm at the moment leaning its way. Is there any objective reason to use XMPP for my purpose? Does it have anything I would miss in IRC?