What is Zulip and what are its top alternatives?
Top Alternatives to Zulip
Slack
Imagine all your team communication in one place, instantly searchable, available wherever you go. That’s Slack. All your messages. All your files. And everything from Twitter, Dropbox, Google Docs, Asana, Trello, GitHub and dozens of other services. All together. ...
RocketChat
Rocket.Chat is a Web Chat Server, developed in JavaScript, using the Meteor fullstack framework. It is a great solution for communities and companies wanting to privately host their own chat service or for developers looking forward to build and evolve their own chat platforms. ...
Mattermost
Mattermost is modern communication from behind your firewall.
Discord
Discord is a modern free voice & text chat app for groups of gamers. Our resilient Erlang backend running on the cloud has built in DDoS protection with automatic server failover. ...
Riot
Riot brings custom tags to all browsers. Think React + Polymer but with enjoyable syntax and a small learning curve. ...
Rocket
Rocket is a web framework for Rust that makes it simple to write fast web applications without sacrificing flexibility or type safety. All with minimal code. ...
Twist
Twist is a communication app for teams who believe there’s more to work than keeping up with group chat apps, created by the makers of Todoist. ...
Discourse
Discourse is a simple, flat forum, where replies flow down the page in a line. Replies are attached to the bottom and top of each post, so you can optionally expand the context of the conversation – without breaking your flow. ...
Zulip alternatives & related posts
- Easy to integrate with1.2K
- Excellent interface on multiple platforms876
- Free846
- Mobile friendly692
- People really enjoy using it688
- Great integrations329
- Flexible notification preferences314
- Unlimited users196
- Strong search and data archiving184
- Multi domain switching support154
- Easy to use80
- Beautiful39
- Hubot support27
- Unread/read control22
- Slackbot21
- Permalink for each messages18
- Text snippet with highlighting17
- Quote message easily15
- Per-room notification14
- Awesome integration support13
- IRC gateway12
- Star for each message / attached files12
- Good communication within a team11
- Dropbox Integration11
- Jira Integration10
- Slick, search is great10
- New Relic Integration9
- Great communication tool8
- Combine All Services Quickly8
- Asana Integration8
- Awesomeness7
- This tool understands developers7
- Google Drive Integration7
- Replaces email6
- BitBucket integration6
- XMPP gateway6
- Twitter Integration6
- Google Docs Integration6
- GREAT Customer Support / Quick Response to Feedback5
- Jenkins Integration5
- Guest and Restricted user control5
- Gathers all my communications in one place4
- Excellent multi platform internal communication tool4
- GitHub integration4
- Mention list view4
- Easy to start working with3
- Visual Studio Integration3
- Perfect implementation of chat + integrations3
- Easy3
- Easy to add a reaction3
- Clean UI3
- Timely while non intrusive3
- Great on-boarding3
- Threaded chat3
- Intuitive, easy to use, great integrations2
- Simplicity2
- Great interface2
- So much better than email2
- Message Actions2
- Great Channel Customization2
- It's basically an improved (although closed) IRC2
- Eases collaboration for geographically dispersed teams2
- Android app2
- Great API1
- Very customizable1
- API1
- Easy remote communication1
- Get less busy1
- Targetprocess integration1
- Better User Experience1
- Finally with terrible "threading"—I miss Flowdock1
- Archive Importing1
- Great Support Team1
- Complete with plenty of Electron BLOAT1
- Markdown1
- Multi work-space support1
- Flexible and Accessible1
- Travis CI integration1
- It's the coolest IM ever1
- I was 666 star :D1
- Community1
- Dev communication Made Easy1
- Integrates with just about everything1
- Easy to useL0
- Platforms0
- Can be distracting depending on how you use it12
- Requires some management for large teams6
- Limit messages history5
- Too expensive4
- You don't really own your messages4
- Too many notifications by default3
related Slack posts
Sentry has been essential to our development approach. Nobody likes errors or apps that crash. We use Sentry heavily during Node.js and React development. Our developers are able to see error reports, crashes, user's browsers, and more, all in one place. Sentry also seamlessly integrates with Asana, Slack, and GitHub.
Using Screenhero via Slack was getting to be pretty horrible. Video and sound quality was often times pretty bad and worst of all the service just wasn't reliable. We all had high hopes when the acquisition went through but ultimately, the product just didn't live up to expectations. We ended up trying Zoom after I had heard about it from some friends at other companies. We noticed the video/sound quality was better, and more importantly it was super reliable. The Slack integration was awesome (just type /zoom and it starts a call)
You can schedule recurring calls which is helpful. There's a G Suite (Google Calendar) integration which lets you add a Zoom call (w/dial in info + link to web/mobile) with the click of a button.
Meeting recordings (video and audio) are really nice, you get recordings stored in the cloud on the higher tier plans. One of our engineers, Jerome, actually built a cool little Slack integration using the Slack API and Zoom API so that every time a recording is processed, a link gets posted to the "event-recordings" channel. The iOS app is great too!
#WebAndVideoConferencing #videochat
- Open source70
- Can be deployed on premise36
- Byos (bring your own server)32
- Faster than Slack30
- Mobile app for iphone, ipad, and ipod touch20
- Desktop client for mac and windows19
- Built using meteor19
- Easily deployed on Cloud Services (Heroku, etc)13
- Screen Sharing10
- Excellent support & service, bar-none9
- Video and audio6
- Multiple Security integrations - LDAP etc5
- Web client5
- Docker Image for easy setup5
- Amazing product, fast moving development, and BYOS5
- Open source5
- Mobile app for android phone, tablet, and tv stick5
- Great development team4
- Datacontrol4
- Free4
- Love it - running on R Pi 22
- Open source server2
- Slack bridge1
- Broadcast & Readonly channels1
- Linux Client Support1
- Flexible Integrations1
- Ldap integration1
- Threading model0
- Not as well-known as others like it1
related RocketChat posts
I use Zulip instead of Slack, Mattermost, or RocketChat because of its first class threading. One week after switching to Gmail (in 2004) I realized I was never (willingly) going to use an unthreaded email product again. I had that same experience the first time I saw Zulip.
Zulip is also fully open-source, with a well-maintained (e.g. 90+% test coverage, fully static python), easily extensible code-base. In many companies, your communication platform (chat or email) is the center of the workplace -- no one asks for a chat integration into their calendar, they ask for a calendar integration into their chat. A fully open-source codebase means you can customize Zulip to your needs, and are never at the whim of a corporate maintainer who can't or won't fix simple bugs, or who will charge you tens of thousands of dollars for making minor customizations.
We need to develop a social media like chat in which users can message each other or create a channel. We are planning to use RocketChat or Mattermost under the hood to develop a custom UI. How do notifications work in that case? Has anyone done it? Or is there any better way to implement it.
- Open source54
- On-premise deployment38
- Free25
- Built using golang22
- Fast and easy to use19
- Full text search14
- Docker image provided for easy setup13
- Built using react12
- Search and data archiving11
- Very professional9
- Supports multiple teams9
- Keeps us focused, effective, concise8
- Webhooks support7
- Integration with Gitlab6
- Clean and simple look6
- Well documented5
- Use #Hashtags like Twitter5
- Import Slack logs3
- Reactive community and ease of use3
- Self managed data2
- Easy webhook integration1
- On-premises Deployment1
- Secure1
- Slack-compatible integrations1
- On premise installation0
- Basic permissions only in enterprise edition1
- Custom sidewide themes only in enterprise1
- Many basic features are enterprise only1
- Less integrations and plugins than slack1
related Mattermost posts
I use Slack because it offers the best experience, even on the free tier (which we're still using). As a comparison, I have had in depth experience with HipChat, Stride, Skype, Google Chat (the new service), Google Hangouts (the old service). For self hosted, Mattermost is open source and claims to support most Slack integrations, but I have not extensively investigated this claim.
I use Zulip instead of Slack, Mattermost, or RocketChat because of its first class threading. One week after switching to Gmail (in 2004) I realized I was never (willingly) going to use an unthreaded email product again. I had that same experience the first time I saw Zulip.
Zulip is also fully open-source, with a well-maintained (e.g. 90+% test coverage, fully static python), easily extensible code-base. In many companies, your communication platform (chat or email) is the center of the workplace -- no one asks for a chat integration into their calendar, they ask for a calendar integration into their chat. A fully open-source codebase means you can customize Zulip to your needs, and are never at the whim of a corporate maintainer who can't or won't fix simple bugs, or who will charge you tens of thousands of dollars for making minor customizations.
Discord
- Unlimited Users49
- Unlimited Channels46
- Easy to use42
- Fast and easy set-ups and connections40
- Voice Chat39
- Clean UI35
- Mobile Friendly33
- Free31
- Android App23
- Mention system21
- Customizable notifications on per channel basis21
- Customizable ranks/permissions20
- IOS app17
- Vast Webhook Support16
- Good code embedding16
- Easy context switching between work and home12
- Dark mode12
- Easy to develop for11
- Great Customer Support11
- Roles10
- Great Communities9
- Bot control8
- Video Call Conference8
- Video call meeting8
- Great browser experience8
- Very Resource Friendly8
- Easy Server Setup and joining system8
- Able to hold 99 people in one call8
- Sharing screen layer7
- Robust7
- Shares screen with other member7
- Cool6
- Easy to code bots for6
- Easy5
- Lower bandwidth requirements than competitors5
- Better than Zoom4
- Everyone look at my con (it's a pro disguised as a con)3
- Noice3
- Not got wierd emojis like everything made by google1
- Not as many integrations as Slack9
- For gamers8
- Limited file size4
- Sends data to US Gov2
- For everyone2
- Discord is great, what are you talking about?2
- Are u mad u ever heard of DMs???1
- Suspected Pedophiles in few servers1
- Unsupportive Support1
- What i mean by this is someone said u cant chat lol1
- Undescriptive in global ban reasons1
- Zoom is WAY better bc you can't even chat on Discord0
related Discord posts
Shortly after I joined Algolia as a developer advocate, I knew I wanted to establish a place for the community to congregate and share their projects, questions and advice. There are a ton of platforms out there that can be used to host communities, and they tend to fall into two categories - real-time sync (like chat) and async (like forums). Because the community was already large, I felt that a chat platform like Discord or Gitter might be overwhelming and opted for a forum-like solution instead (which would also create content that's searchable from Google).
I looked at paid, closed-source options like AnswerHub and ForumBee and old-school solutions like phpBB and vBulletin, but none seemed to offer the power, flexibility and developer-friendliness of Discourse. Discourse is open source, written in Rails with Ember.js on the front-end. That made me confident I could modify it to meet our exact needs. Discourse's own forum is very active which made me confident I could get help if I needed it.
It took about a month to get Discourse up-and-running and make authentication tied to algolia.com via the SSO plugin. Adding additional plugins for moderation or look-and-feel customization was fairly straightforward, and I even created a plugin to make the forum content searchable with Algolia. To stay on top of answering questions and moderation, we used the Discourse API to publish new messages into our Slack. All-in-all I would say we were happy with Discourse - the only caveat would be that it's very helpful to have technical knowledge as well as Rails knowledge in order to get the most out of it.
From a StackShare Community member: “We’re about to start a chat group for our open source project (over 5K stars on GitHub) so we can let our community collaborate more closely. The obvious choice would be Slack (k8s and a ton of major projects use it), but we’ve seen Gitter (webpack uses it) for a lot of open source projects, Discord (Vue.js moved to them), and as of late I’m seeing Spectrum more and more often. Does anyone have experience with these or other alternatives? Is it even worth assessing all these options, or should we just go with Slack? Some things that are important to us: free, all the regular integrations (GitHub, Heroku, etc), mobile & desktop apps, and open source is of course a plus."
- Its just easy... no training wheels needed13
- Light weight. Fast. Clear13
- Very simple, fast11
- Straightforward9
- Minimalistic6
- Great documentation4
- Simpler semantics than other frameworks4
- Easier than playing Teemo3
- Great engineering2
- Light, flexible and library friendly2
- Mastered under an hour1
- Smaller community1
related Riot posts
- Uses all the rust features extensively4
- Easy to use3
- Django analog in rust1
- Provides nice abstractions1
related Rocket posts
related Twist posts
For many(if not all) small and medium size business time and cost matter a lot.
That's why languages, frameworks, tools, and services that are easy to use and provide 0 to productive in less time, it's best.
Maybe Node.js frameworks might provide better features compared to Rails but in terms of MVPs, for us Rails is the leading alternative.
Amazon EC2 might be cheaper and more customizable than Heroku but in the initial terms of a project, you need to complete configurationos and deploy early.
Advanced configurations can be done down the road, when the project is running and making money, not before.
But moving fast isn't the only thing we care about. We also take the job to leave a good codebase from the beginning and because of that we try to follow, as much as we can, style guides in Ruby with RuboCop and in JavaScript with ESLint and StandardJS.
Finally, comunication and keeping a good history of conversations, decisions, and discussions is important so we use a mix of Slack and Twist
Discourse
- Open source25
- Fast16
- Email digests12
- Better than a stereotypical forum8
- Perfect for communities of any size7
- Made by same folks from stackoverflow6
- Built with Ember.js6
- It's perfect to build real communities6
- Great customer support5
- Configurations2
- Translated into a lot of Languages2
- Made by consolidated team with a working business2
- Easy flag resolution1
- Notifications aren't great on mobile due to being a PWA1
related Discourse posts
Shortly after I joined Algolia as a developer advocate, I knew I wanted to establish a place for the community to congregate and share their projects, questions and advice. There are a ton of platforms out there that can be used to host communities, and they tend to fall into two categories - real-time sync (like chat) and async (like forums). Because the community was already large, I felt that a chat platform like Discord or Gitter might be overwhelming and opted for a forum-like solution instead (which would also create content that's searchable from Google).
I looked at paid, closed-source options like AnswerHub and ForumBee and old-school solutions like phpBB and vBulletin, but none seemed to offer the power, flexibility and developer-friendliness of Discourse. Discourse is open source, written in Rails with Ember.js on the front-end. That made me confident I could modify it to meet our exact needs. Discourse's own forum is very active which made me confident I could get help if I needed it.
It took about a month to get Discourse up-and-running and make authentication tied to algolia.com via the SSO plugin. Adding additional plugins for moderation or look-and-feel customization was fairly straightforward, and I even created a plugin to make the forum content searchable with Algolia. To stay on top of answering questions and moderation, we used the Discourse API to publish new messages into our Slack. All-in-all I would say we were happy with Discourse - the only caveat would be that it's very helpful to have technical knowledge as well as Rails knowledge in order to get the most out of it.