It looks a little something like this: http://i.imgur.com/djnd0Uk.png
It's still in it's infancy, currently working on a big update that includes a REST api and other stuff.
The only reason I don't host my own e-mail is I haven't found an open source project that can truly compete with gmail's functionality and the fact I don't really care if Google reads my e-mail since none of it is sensitive.
I have high hopes for https://www.mailpile.is/ since if my Desktop is down, I'm screwed /anyway/.
Just my two cents.
You sure can maintain your own IRC server, the same way you can maintain your own Git server. But it's probably a waste of time when you know that you have free or cheap alternatives (Gmail, GitHub, Mailchimp): stuff breaks, and even if you can fix it doesn't mean you should.
I outsource stuff that I depend on and don't want to waste time maintaining: email, online storage, some collaboration tools...
If you're into mailpile, you should support them for the Knight Foundation News Challenge: https://www.newschallenge.org/challenge/2014/feedback-review.... Personally, I assume that I wouldn't be able to do a better job at securing stuff up on my own, but it is an interesting project nonetheless.
And if you still have 5 minutes to kill, check out Carbon Folder, my team's entry: https://www.newschallenge.org/challenge/2014/submissions/car...
I'll take a look at yours, I already did the Mailpile bit.
The problem I see with message apps is that it's like email; you really wished you could host it yourself and fine tune things (as well as make sure nobody is eavesdropping). But you can't have it down or (worse) performing at half capacity. It needs to be up all the time with almost perfect quality.
Sure you can set something up yourself, but you'll probably struggle with maintaining a decent QoS, and if your team is any good, they probably won't allow that to go on very long.