irccloud.com ($50/year) is a good option for people who don't want to run their own server. Only costs $13/year more than your solution. Though paying money to

irccloud.com ($50/year) is a good option for people who don't want to run their own server. Only costs $13/year more than your solution. Though paying money to receive messages while offline (or fiddling with ZNC) is one of the reasons IRC getting its lunch eaten by everything.