All Zulip Reviews
1-25 of 114 Reviews
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Angel
Verified reviewer
Research, 201-500 employees
Used daily for less than 6 months
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed April 2023
Zulip is a great chat/asynchronous communication tool.
Zulip is the best chat/asynchronous communication tool that I have tried so far. It is not perfect, but for an organization with many members and generating hundreds of messages per day, it is the best option to keep things organized.We have been using Zulip at our institution only for ~1 month, but despite the inertia to change from previously used tools, we are now ~60 members, with more than ~4500 messages, and most people seem to be very happy with the change and not looking back.
PROS+ open source (https://github.com/zulip)+ Cloud Standard Plan free for Research (https://zulip.com/plans/) + messages do not get deleted after a certain period of time.+ Unique topics feature that helps keeping conversations together (invaluable when a large number of members and conversations. Much better than threads in Slack/Discord/etc).+ Several interfaces: Web, Desktop (Mac, Linux, Windows), Mobile (ios, Android)+ strong and very active developing community https://zulip.com/development-community/+ rich formatting of messages: https://zulip.com/help/format-your-message-using-markdown+ integration and bots: https://zulip.com/integrations/
CONS+ Mobile app not too polished yet + Not easy to create sub-organizations at the moment (but the Team is working on that)
Reason for choosing Zulip
Mostly because of its open-source nature, its free cloud plan for Research and it unique topic feature.
Reasons for switching to Zulip
Other options were propietary and we wanted to have control of our messages and be able to download them and self-host the platform if necessary.
Catalin
Research, 51-200 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed March 2023
Much better than Slack and Mattermost
I really love the way Zulip organizes conversations into named topics. It relieves a lot of stress to know that even after a vacation or some time working on a different project, I can always quickly and easily catch up on everything that's been going on. No other chat application offers such a great conversation model.Zulip is also open source and offers both self-hosting and cloud hosting, including free hosting plans for open source and academic projects.
CONSThe phone app can only log into one organization at a time, but this is not a big problem for me, since I don't enable mobile notifications, but .
Reason for choosing Zulip
Mattermost didn't support threads at all when I made this choice, and even now it only support's a limited Slack-like thread model.
Reasons for switching to Zulip
I hated Slack, since as soon a channel become high traffic it was a mess ... super stressy to catch up with what was going on.
Nivedh
Information Technology and Services, 201-500 employees
Used daily for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
3
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
3
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed October 2021
Alternative solution to other expensive software to manage organizational communication
Zulip is a good software , I liked the chat feature and controls/restrictions we can add for the specific users.
CONSNot as such , most of the things are good
Miguel
Higher Education, 201-500 employees
Used weekly for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed March 2023
Zulip for a CS department in a University
Our main use of Zulip is to have forums of discussions for each subject and also for collaborating between the faculty members and between students. It's a more lively environment than that of the forum in Moodle.
PROSIt's really nice to have streams (channels) for each subject/research groups/student groups; each stream is self-administered by the teachers or by the students themselves. I also like the organization in Topics inside each stream and the possibility to focus in just one topic. It's handy to be able to direct message with a group of others users. Being a CS department it's handy to have syntax highlighting (as I write this review I discovered code playgrounds!)
CONSI'd like to have the possibility to use topics inside Direct Messages; it'd be nice to have separate conversations in parallel with some other person(s) having the ability to focus on this or that topic.
Reason for choosing Zulip
We voted between all the alternatives and the winner was Zulip. The possibility of using an instance of Zulip hosted in (and maintained by) Zulip was a very important point for us.
Reasons for switching to Zulip
We had a limited account on Slack and we lost the history after two or three months after reaching some quota. Therefore we considered various alternatives (see below).
Antonio
Computer Software, 2-10 employees
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed March 2023
Best tool to communicate in a research group
Best communication tool to run my research group. Highly recommended to all (small and big) labs in computer science, machine learning and AI.
PROSZulip offers the most logical and practical way to arrange threads and conversations into semantic streams. It offers the perfect integration with LaTeX which is fundamental to write math and hence to support scientific discussion in my team.
CONSZulip on the smartphone is still not as polished as the web or desktop app. It would be great to have the same fluid interface at your thumb disposal.
Reason for choosing Zulip
Slim, faster and with beautiful information hierarchies
Reasons for switching to Zulip
Slack is overpriced, but most crucially offers a non-sensical way to organize information and communicate. Math is not fully supported from day zero.
Gianluca
Higher Education, 501-1,000 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed March 2023
A better slack
We are a research group at a mid-size university and I need to communicate with collaborators (less than a dozen) and with students (a few dozens at a time).Zulip has always provided a clear way to communicate.
PROSWe like the threaded model of discussion, which is similar to email. We appreciate that search is unlimited.Overall, it is always been very reliable. I cannot remember a downtime.
CONSIntegrations with other services are quite complex to setup, For instance, I would have liked a much deeper integration with webex and google calendar.
Reason for choosing Zulip
Zulip is open source. This means that I will not be locked-in, like we have been with slack.
Reasons for switching to Zulip
Slack was simply too expensive.After the switch, I realized that zulip is a better product.
Harold
Research, 10,000+ employees
Used weekly for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed March 2023
Best discussion platform for researchers
I am using Zulip for different research groups, both for collaborating with colleagues, but also to send information within our organizations.
PROSZulip is just amazing for researchers with regards to all aspects. It is the only discussion platform which supports Latex natively, and it also has the best way to organize messages and topics. It can be fine-tuned very easily (for example, by automatically linking arxiv number to the website). I like the fact that markup is done with markdown, and that it contains useful tools such that timezone-aware times and dates. Being open source is another major advantage, and the community is very supportive.
CONSI don't see any major problem with Zulip, except maybe the possibility to create sub-instances within a given organization.
Reason for choosing Zulip
Zulip is overall the best and the only one to include Latex, and all other products are badly designed.
Reasons for switching to Zulip
Slack is awful to use, slow, and it became very expensive.
Jarvist
Research, 11-50 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed March 2023
For deep work in a busy world
Much less FOMO than with other team chat products.
PROSThe interface is really calm, and the threaded model works really well in terms of encouraging long-form conversation and notes that can be referred back to and found many months and years in the future. Group discussions become almost a knowledge base. There's much less 'fear of missing out' and feeling like you always need to be online / ready to pounce on a conversation, as it's much easier to revisit something hours (or days, weeks, years) later and add content and contribute to it.I found the web-hooks very easy to use - in my case, any Git commits get referred to (with links) in a special #github channel with the repositories being individual threads. It is then very natural to have a conversation here with your collaborators about the latest works, discuss what to do next etc. I also adapted some code which interfaces to the Zotero reference manager, so that new papers added to our shared Zotero group get injected into their own thread on a #zotero channel. Again, this a very natural place to discuss papers, assign readings, plan journal clubs etc.
CONSIt's somehow a bit less fun / responsive; it's not so good at being a place for cat videos, or fast paced emoji filled water cooler chats.
Reasons for switching to Zulip
Having introduced Slack at the previous research group I was a member of, I was a bit disappointed that it was so difficult to follow older conversations, and seemed to encourage an 'always on' mentality. It was also very expensive for a research group, and the free plan meant that messages disappeared really quickly.
Anonymous
201-500 employees
Used weekly for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed March 2023
Easy simple clean communication
We have 500 people in the learning community. Many of whom really make good use of Zulip to communicate and share ideas and ask questions. But I find many people do not spend the time to learn it and do not set it up properly, and miss out.
PROSI love how every message has its place. It is so easy to find the right place to post a message so the right people see it. I love the how easy it is to customise the alerts, so you do not get swamped with alerts that are not important to you. Zulip has a clean and simple interface, unlike others which can be so confusing. I love how if someone puts a post in the wrong stream, it can easily be moved to the right place.
CONSI would love to be able to set up alerts for people who struggle to do it themselves. Obviously they would need to give permission for me to do this. At the very least there could be one stream that everyone gets notifications for, so I can push out important announcements.
Reason for choosing Zulip
Once I found Zulip, I was convinced it was right for us because of how lean and easy it is to use for people who are not so technical.
Reasons for switching to Zulip
Way too complicated. Way to many messages. Too difficult to find info quickly.
Tjwan
Verified reviewer
Public Policy, 51-200 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed March 2023
Excellent tool for group collaboration purposes!
Very convenient to work with a multitude on teams within an organization with different members and being able to keep up with a lot of different topics. Even if you were away for some time, it is easy to keep track and get informed about the current status of a multitude of topics.
PROSThe feature that within channels a multitude of topics are possible and the ease to subscribe or stop following specific channels.
CONSThe text formatting (bold/underline etc) options are available, but in a clumsy technical way (not intuitive, you need to remember specific text codes)
Reason for choosing Zulip
The ease of adding topics within channels, ánd keep a good overview at the same time.
Reasons for switching to Zulip
Zulip gave us a much better overview of different channels and associated topics.
Miranda
Non-Profit Organization Management, 51-200 employees
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed March 2023
First year - slow start but acceptance rising
It took some time for us to realizse the potential Zulip offers and figure out how to set up the right amount of streams and themes. We are always trying to keep it clean and simple as to keep everyone engaged. Trying to wean everyone from using Email is a task!
PROSWe were specifically looking for a platform that would enable our nearly 100 teammembers to communicate, share resources, plan meetings etc. The challenge was that 80% are not digital natives and needed a tool that was easy to use and intuitive. Zulip offers everything we needed without being overloaded with features that can sometimes distract. Keep it simple is the way to go for us.
CONSWe would love to have an intergrated calender that is easily accessible for all users. Some features are difficult to understand (and therefore not within our reach) without some knowledge of programming. (construct a narrow etc.)
Reason for choosing Zulip
We tested the other products and Zulip was the only product that really met our needs.
Beta
E-Learning, 11-50 employees
Used weekly for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed March 2023
The only chat that got threads right
We use Zulip for communications in our CS department, totaling at the moment 1k users. The experience is mixed: people active in Zulip love it, but some students do not take the most out of it because they prefer the more shiny Discord. In my experience, a voice chat option and a more modern look would help keep those people in.Overall, as a professor, the structure of threads makes communication seamless in the subjects I teach. As such, I'm very happy with the tool.
PROSI find the thread model of Zulip to be unbeatable. In my experience, people feel at lost for the first couple of days, but once they get it, they see the value of having every message belonging to a thread. This makes topics and messages very easy to search just by scrolling.
CONSWhat is currently missing is the easy voice chat that Discord or Slack provide. Some people complain about the interface, for not being easy enough to use and/or for having a retro-style (I like it actually, but I transmit what I've heard).
Reason for choosing Zulip
The infinite history and the threaded model of the chat.
Dante
Research, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
4
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed March 2023
Zulip as a tool for research and education
Zulip as allow us to improve the communication between de members of our organization in synchronous and asynchronous way. Zulip adapts easily to the different interactions between the members.
PROSZulip give us an horizontal and virtual space to get in contact all the members of our institute. It allows an easy and decentralized way to create different channels of communication between de members while keeping a complete record of all the communications.
CONSPerhaps a better integration with web browsers and linux desktop environment, through notifications or a desktop application.
Reasons for switching to Zulip
Principally due to the limitations in the storage of history records
Leonardo
Computer Software, 10,000+ employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed March 2023
Zulip is amazing
It has been amazing.
PROSIt is very scalable, and easy to add structure to different discussion threads, share files, and create meetings.
CONSI can't think of any. Zulip is superior to any other solution we have tried to organize the Lean community
Reasons for switching to Zulip
Zulip is way easier to organize the different discussion threads and manage big communities.
Krešimir
Higher Education, 501-1,000 employees
Used daily for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed March 2023
Best for structured team communication
Team communication while working on several projects.
PROSThe division into streams and then subdivision into topics is very natural.
CONSReally nothing to dislike - it is perfect for what I use it.
Reason for choosing Zulip
After trying several, Zulip was just simply the most natural to use. Especially for sharing information that has to be accessible for a long time and not only by search.
Reasons for switching to Zulip
Initially, because Slack reduced the features of the free version.
Jonathan
Research, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed March 2023
Unreal option for the price
Great product with an exceptional value.
PROSZulip is a full on Slack replacement for a fraction of the cost. I really prefer the topic threading to the freeform nature of Slack as well. Truly an ideal replacement.
CONSMy biggest issue is the lack of a scheduled message feature. I schedule messages/emails to my team all the time to help things pop up at appropriate times and ease anxiety if I am working on something off hours. I can use the terminal client to schedule a message, but I really want it in the main software.
Reason for choosing Zulip
Had everything I wanted for the best price.
Reasons for switching to Zulip
Cost
Keith
Research, 11-50 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed March 2023
Great for coordinating a research group (and being able to find information later)
We've found it great at coordinating our research group.
PROSThe best part of Zulip is the way that every conversation is tagged with a lightweight "topic" (so we can always find information later) and the ability to quickly catch up with everything threaded in one chronological view. You don't have to click around to different "rooms" and you don't end up with everything jumbled together and unfindable. The threading works vastly better than Slack or Discord.
CONSNew users often find it a bit unfamiliar if they're used to Slack.
Micha
Research, 1,001-5,000 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed March 2023
An amazing chat app with a killer feature to keep things organized
Zulip is an easy to use chat app similar to Slack or Mattermost. The single best feature is that it has a two level categorization of messages: the traditional channel (called a "stream") that people can subscribe to, but also an additional "topic", more similar to an email subject. This allows to use zulip also for more long-lived discussions, as it is easy to find messages much later by referring to the topic.Additionally, it is easy to use and supports everything that is expected from such a chat app (standard and custom emoji, reaction gifs, markdown formatting, bots, integration with other tools, etc.)
CONSThe UI is not as pretty as its competitors, but its functionality more than makes up for it.
Reason for choosing Zulip
Better organization thanks to streams + topics
Reasons for switching to Zulip
gitter crippled their free tier, even for open source projects.
Lindsey
Higher Education, 1,001-5,000 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed April 2023
Amazing open-source alternative to Slack
As a professor, I've used Zulip for my research group and for running several classes. I'm a longtime Zulip enthusiast, having used it for years as part of the Recurse Center community. I love how the threading model keeps things organized, and the API is extremely well documented and easy to use. It's got tons of handy features like code syntax highlighting and LaTeX rendering. I use the hosted version, but since it's open source and self-hostable, I could always switch to self-hosting and have full control if I wanted, unlike alternatives like Slack. I wouldn't want to use anything but Zulip!
CONSThe Zulip Android app sometimes lags behind in features.
Jaemin
Research, 11-50 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed March 2023
Zulip is great
Topics in streams. It prevents creating too many streams while organizing relevant chats together.
CONSUI customization. It supports custom CSS, but it's not easy to do for everyone.
Scott
Research, 1 employee
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed March 2023
We use zulip for manage a large open source community
Our zulip instance ties the whole community together, from new users to core developers, as well as associated communities (e.g. user groups in specific localities, and research collaborations).
PROSZulip has excellent organisation: conversations are divided up into streams and threads and direct messages, and you can focus on the parts that matter. We have everything from open, all-purpose streams for new users, down to private streams for core developers.
CONSThe mobile app is not quite as good as the desktop app; particularly I often find myself wanting to go back to message I read 10 minutes earlier, and not being able to find it.
Reasons for switching to Zulip
Better message organisation!
Eric
Computer Software, 11-50 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed March 2023
Best value for money
Excellent
PROSZéro bugQuick and efficientEasy to search
CONSSometime complex to use for non daily users
Reason for choosing Zulip
Price
Reasons for switching to Zulip
Price
Jens
Biotechnology, 2-10 employees
Used daily for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
3
Reviewed March 2023
Great chat that keeps topics separated
It works very well for us, easy to find things given the separation of topics
PROSSeparation of topics instead of one stream with everything
CONSMissing native video/audio integration. Would have been really nice to have connected to streams/topics
Reason for choosing Zulip
Separation of topics
Praveen
Verified reviewer
Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 6 months
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed July 2021
A good tool for team communication
Overall, Zulip is a great tool for communication. Team members can stay in the loop of relevant information and not be overwhelmed by information that is irrelevant to their tasks and work. Plus, being free and Open source is another great benefit
PROSZulip is free and opensource and works on all platforms (windows, mac, linux, android and ios). It offers all standard chat methods needed for team communication. Communication can be organized through streams and topics and team members can be subsrcibe to these topics and stay in the loop with relevant information. The software is free to use, and you can even host it in your own servers for flexibility. Additional integration is also possible and includes a lot of popular services such as GitHub, Heroku, Zendesk and more. There is a paid plan which is cheap and offers additional features like company branding and 10GB storage per user. Communication can work smoothly as you can stay informed about topics relevant to you and ignore the rest, which can be a lot of messages when you are working in a diverse team.
CONSOverall, there was nothing that was lacking in particular. There are no features like video calling or calendars built in, which might be possible to add via integration but was not tested personally. But Zulip gets the job done if you are only looking for a chat client to communicate in an organized manner.
Demetrius
Non-Profit Organization Management, 2-10 employees
Used monthly for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed March 2023
Extremelly useful and portable
I was using a free plan from slack, that is also an excellent tool. But the rules changed and zilip, besides offering me the possibility to import my chats from slack, it has some advantages over slack that are really very useful.
PROSZulip successfully implements many features (over other tools), such as search and topic segregation which, in my opinion, are essential to have an organized discussion. Also, you don't have to throw your data away if you need to change your zulip provider or even if you need to switch to another tool. For example, I was able to import my data from slack and it worked very well. In the future, I can install zulip on my personal server and keep the code running by my own means.
CONSIt's not very pretty and some features (like replies to posts) are easily used by programmers, but are not so smooth for the layman.Not being used by many people is its main con because people generally reject changing from one tool to another, enen if the other shows itself better.
Reasons for switching to Zulip
Slack changed the rules to free users.