Hello Robert,

I guess there's no really "best" chat plugin and it's probably just a matter of preference

ok any you have tried so far and it has worked for you?

Hm, to be honest with you, I have never really tried any

I have been using JChatSocial which has worked out of the box on several sites with EasySocial on, it integrates the users avatar and profile and is also a Skype bridge for video calls.
Hope this helps.

Thanks for sharing Chris

It looks like jchat stores each individual line of message, so if your community is very active, the backend view becomes messy. Also, wouldn't that make the database enormous?

I've used FreiChat in the past which seemed decent. I've spoke with them in the past which they were very good about replying to their forums. Ask for integration with ES.

Thanks for sharing