Zulip 2026: Benefits, Features & Pricing

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Overview
User Interface
Popular Alternatives
Pricing and Plans
Features
Integrations
User Reviews
Popular Comparisons

Overview

Zulip

4.9

(196)

Pricing

Starting at $6.67 per month

About Zulip

Zulip is the only modern team chat app that is designed for both live and asynchronous conversations. Zulip topics create a separate space for each discussion, so different conversations will never get in each other's way. Teams of all sizes rely on Zulip - Fortune 500 companies, open-source projects, startups, and many others. Zulip is 100% open-source enterprise-grade software, self-hosted or in the cloud.

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Zulip User Interface

Popular Zulip Alternatives

Main Product

Zulip

4.9

(196)

Ratings Breakdown

4.60Ease of use
4.93Value for money
4.79Customer support
4.64Functionality

Pricing

Starting at $6.67 per month

Get Price

Alternative Product

Microsoft Teams

4.5

(10903)

Ratings Breakdown

4.38Ease of use
4.43Value for money
4.24Customer support
4.39Functionality

Pricing

Starting at $4.00 per month

Get Price

Alternative Product

Slack

4.7

(24024)

Ratings Breakdown

4.61Ease of use
4.55Value for money
4.43Customer support
4.56Functionality

Pricing

Starting at $8.75 per month

Get Price

Alternative Product

4.7

(16274)

Ratings Breakdown

4.78Ease of use
4.73Value for money
4.30Customer support
4.55Functionality

Pricing

Available upon request

Get Price

Alternative Product

Connecteam

4.6

(5012)

Ratings Breakdown

4.66Ease of use
4.46Value for money
4.61Customer support
4.53Functionality

Pricing

Starting at $29.00 per month

Get Price

Alternative Product

4.7

(6403)

Ratings Breakdown

4.67Ease of use
4.65Value for money
4.29Customer support
4.58Functionality

Pricing

Available upon request

Get Price

Zulip Pricing and Plans

Starting price: $6.67 per month

Free Trial

Free Version

Basic

$6.67

per user, per month

No plan information available

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Zulip Features

Popular features found in Collaboration
Access Controls/Permissions
Alerts/Notifications
Calendar Management
Collaboration Tools
Discussions/Forums
Document Management
@mentions
Screen Sharing
Secure Data Storage
Task Management
Video Conferencing
More features of Zulip
Active Directory Integration
Activity Dashboard
Activity/News Feed
API
Audio Calls
Chat/Messaging
Communication Management
Contact Management
Customizable Branding
Data Import/Export
Document Storage
Drag & Drop
Employee Communities
Employee Photos
File Sharing
File Transfer
Mobile Access
Mobile Alerts
Multi-Language
Real-Time Chat
Real-Time Notifications
Real-Time Updates
Remote Access/Control
Remote Support
Reporting & Statistics
Role-Based Permissions
Search/Filter
Single Sign On
SSL Security
Survey/Poll Management
Third-Party Integrations
Time Zone Tracking
To-Do List
Transcripts/Chat History
Two-Way Audio & Video
Video Chat

Zulip Integrations

GitHub

Integration rated 4.7 from 17 reviews

Zulip User Reviews

Overall Rating

4.9

Ratings Breakdown

88%

12%

Secondary Ratings

Ease of Use

4.6

Value for money

4.9

Customer support

4.8

Functionality

4.6

Germo G.

Verified reviewer

Computer Software

Self-Employed

Used daily for less than 12 months

Reviewed February 2022

streams and topics makes this communication platform very unique and useful

communication in several open source communities. internal communication in projects.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Functionality

Pros:

the unique idea to organize communication in streams and topics looks so simple, but it is so effective and efficient. It is so much better than all other tools I use or I am forced to used in other projects. It is much easier to concentrate my attention on specific topics and at a specific time.

Cons:

I want to subscribe to topics, but this is still on the roadmap. The mobile client is very limited and that's why even on the smartphone I use the web client. I am waiting for the feature to make content in public orgs public available so it can be found via search engines and accessed by guests.

Reasons for choosing Zulip

because of the unique concept of streams and topics

Reasons for switching to Zulip

because of the unique concept of streams and topics

Felipe B.

Verified reviewer

Information Technology and Services

2-10 employees

Used daily for less than 12 months

Reviewed November 2025

Great alternative to $lack

It's a great alternative to Slack, but cheaper and more stable, and it scale with you if you are a startup

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The possibility to organize the different conversation based on topics and channels, so you never missed anything.

Cons:

The UI isn't beautiful but really functional. All the rest I think is well though and offers what's needed.

Reasons for choosing Zulip

Zulip covers all our needs in its free version.

Reasons for switching to Zulip

We were not able to organize the different conversation happening.

Malak J.

Verified reviewer

Computer Software

2-10 employees

Used weekly for less than 12 months

Reviewed December 2024

Cool idea, lots left on the table for execution

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Functionality

Pros:

Loads of UI config options, has a native mobile app that pairs with it. I haven't yet found a bug in how the software is intended to work. Messaging is speedy and reliable. Super easy to move messages from one channel/place to another, so if you're re-organizing you both don't lose things and also can better consolidate knowledge that accidentally got spread around in different areas.

Cons:

Super confusing UI, even after going through all of the config to make it look/act more like you'd expect from a typical modern chat app. Constantly losing threads of conversation in different places, even after thoughtfully consolidating channels. Even the mobile app push notifications are weird because if you get more than one message you can no longer tap the notification to go to the message.

Reasons for choosing Zulip

Security, primarily. The ability to self-host was important to other people on the team. OSS was a nice touch.

Madison C.

Verified reviewer

Automotive

51-200 employees

Used daily for less than 12 months

Reviewed October 2025

Highly Recommended

It's been great! Teams crashed, wouldn't open properly and had to manually boot up the "old" version for it to work, it would randomly close in the middle of the work day or fail to show a notification so messages were missed. Zulip has none of these issues.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Easy to set up and easy to use. Microsoft Teams was giving me and my coworkers nothing but headaches until I found Zulip as an alternative. UI is great and straightforward, and works seamlessly with my phone. The search function is great and saves me a lot of time when looking for a specific keyword. I would recommend Zulip to anyone!

Cons:

No cons from me. Works exactly how I hoped it would and has made internal communications simple and reliable.

Reasons for switching to Zulip

Teams was unreliable; would close itself or fail to display notifications leading to missed communications.

Rudo K.

Verified reviewer

Environmental Services

11-50 employees

Used daily for less than 12 months

Reviewed October 2025

Excellent threaded communications app

We started to use Zulip to have threaded conversations about many different subjects after finding that things were getting lost on Chat, and it worked super well for our purposes. Highly recommended for dynamic remote teams.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Intuitive UI to have threaded conversations. Searchability and findability. Ease of use, minimal onboarding.

Cons:

Nothing comes to mind, really! It's a great application (both web and mobile), and it does exactly what it needs to.

Reasons for switching to Zulip

Threaded conversations and findability / indexing

Marius M.

Verified reviewer

Entertainment

2-10 employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed May 2025

The best collaboration platform

It's always been fantastic, from documentation to the community chat and open-source code, as well as implementing integrations.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Ease of use, mature and stable software, attentive support team, high quality code and experienced developer/product team!

Cons:

A few nice-to-have features have not matured, such as widgets.

Reasons for switching to Zulip

Switched for better privacy, easier integration, and simpler yet more effective features.

Nazmus S.

Verified reviewer

Information Technology and Services

2-10 employees

Used daily for less than 6 months

Reviewed November 2025

A great Business application , would recommend.

Seamless experience. A great business centered application. Probably having some official videos about the usage of the application would have been nice.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

- Ability to create additional folders and topics under a channel. - Security and user assignment - Haven't used the bot but i can imagine the use of it. - Mobile APP for easy access. - Ability to invite user outside the organization.

Cons:

- Sometimes takes time to load on mac after inactivity. Have to restart to make it work. - Sound notification is not easy to setup on windows.

Reasons for switching to Zulip

Open source, Cost effective, more advanced than slack.

Verified

Reviewer

Computer Software

51-200 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Reviewed December 2024

Highly recommended

We have been using it successfully at work for some years now, I'm very glad we chose Zulip instead of Slack or Teams.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Most organized communication/"chat" tool. Easy to catch up on conversations. Solves the problem of "cross-talking" in channels. Also the most programmer-friendly tool, the syntax highlighting, markdown and LaTeX support are extraordinary.

Cons:

Doesn't have an integrated video meeting + screen sharing tool, but it can integrate with other tools.

Reasons for switching to Zulip

Rocket chat was getting "old" and harder to maintain.

Verified

Reviewer

Non-Profit Organization Management

2-10 employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Reviewed December 2024

We really like it!

Radically improved my team's communication.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Functionality

Pros:

You can move conversations between topics. Totally a game-changer for us.

Cons:

This is a really small thing, but the "follow this topic" thing is something I'd like to turn off – I just want to follow all topics. Also, it would be nice if you could use check boxes to select message that you'd like to move (as opposed to just "all following" or "only this one").

Reasons for choosing Zulip

Moving threads was a cool feature that we wanted to try.

Alejandro G.

Verified reviewer

Research

2-10 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Reviewed March 2023

Zulip is essential for running a succesful research group

Everything feels well done, and it's not a RAM hoarder unlike other similar systems.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Great customer support, they are super willing to help for both open source projects and research groups.The experience is just flawless, there is absolutely no need for slack when zulip exists.We rely heavily on the history log in zulip to look up old charts that were shared via Zulipand to document important points.Also we can share accounts with collaborators, which eases communication a lot, since zulip also worksvery well in its browser version.

Cons:

The only thing I don't like about zulip is thatthere is no option to change the math behaviour and use $$ instead of the default ```math environment.This is however a super low priority thing.

Reasons for switching to Zulip

They lacked transparency and actually to export the information from Slack it was quite painful to do so.Also they did not have math mode at the time, and we rather liked the more open attitude of slack.

Showing 1 - 10 of 196 Reviews

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