Zulip 2026: Benefits, Features & Pricing

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On this page

Overview
Pricing and Plans
Features
Integrations
User Reviews

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.

Zulip Screenshots

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Meredith C.

Verified reviewer

Education Management

2-10 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Reviewed December 2024

Safe and Reliable - Zulip is invaluable

Our overall experience with Zulip has been amazing. During Covid we were suddenly forced into a situation where teens who had been seeing each other on a regular basis were isolated and we needed a safe reliable way for them to communicate. We started using Zulip at that point, and even when restrictions were lifted have continued to use it - it's a fabulous tool, great for communication, keeping users safe and apart from unwelcome external influences.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Zulip is safe and secure for all users - especially for minors who need to contact each other in a safe environment, without the worry of external influences Zulip has been invaluable. For both for administrators and users the desktop product is easy to manage and the layout is intuitive and attractive. Being able to customize it is an added bonus. Users can create individual discussions, or join together easily.

Cons:

The mobile app is less intuitive, but still useable.

Reasons for choosing Zulip

The other products were managed by large commercial companies, and did not allow the same customization, and concerns for privacy. Also, there were ads placed, the content and images of which the admins had no control over, meaning you wouldn't know what is going to be displayed next to your messages.

August G.

Verified reviewer

Computer Software

2-10 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Reviewed December 2024

Zulip is fantastic, but has some painpoints

I love Zulip, it is lightweight and functional and has all the essential features. I would love for it to be easier to organise larger teams, e.g. with documents and/or a clearer and more concise overview of chats and channel data.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

LaTeX support, markdown editing, Free hosting, simple yet functional.

Cons:

It is hard to keep channels and chats organized. Replying on messages copies the entire message -- this should be some kind of expandable I think. The delay in image uploads behaves strangely. If sending a message with an image, it is possible to send the message before the image is uploaded, but then the image will never appear in the message. The final thing I am missing is a better setup for customizing the UI, and integrating addons. A calendar function and/or a todo-list support would be great!

Reasons for switching to Zulip

Slack was too corporate and lacked good markdown support. Particularly, it had no LaTeX support!

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.

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.

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

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.

Showing 1 - 10 of 196 Reviews

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