# Page 4 | Zulip Reviews 2026. Verified Reviews, Pros & Cons | Capterra > Page 4 - Is Zulip the right Team Communication solution for you? Explore 196 verified user reviews from people in industries like yours to make a confident choice. Source: https://www.capterra.com/p/197945/Zulip/reviews --- Zulip 4.9 (196) [View alternatives](https://www.capterra.com/p/197945/Zulip/alternatives/) Provider data verified by our Software Research team, and reviews moderated by our Reviews Verification team. [Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/our-story/) * * * Last updated March 13th, 2026 # Page 4 - Reviews of Zulip ## Showing most helpful reviews Showing 76-100 of 196 Reviews Sort by: Most Helpful Rating Company Size Reviewer's Role Length of Use Frequency of Use YL Young L. Engineer Computer Software Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Revies as a dev" December 7, 2024 5.0 Great for team cooperation. Would love to use it if working on a project next time. Pros Open source and provide free instance. Minimal while include most useful features. Best part: built-in bot support, which allows me to watch GitHub update, interact with Zulip using email, etc. Also: has terminal version. Cons CJK characters search is poor. For example, searching "非常" should return "非常好的作品", as Chinese does not use space as word delimiter. Web interface seems a little boring. Review Source TW Tom W. MD Education Management Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Great for small businesses" December 6, 2024 5.0 We've tried a few systems over the last few years and this one fits the bill perfectly. The price was good (free version worked for us) and things like read receipts are particularly useful! Pros Much more professional system to use for company communication than things like Whatsapp which have privacy concerns. Cons User interface took a bit of getting used to compared to previous systems but once we got going we quickly got familiar with it. Alternatives considered [Discord](https://www.capterra.com/p/240238/Discord/)[Slack](https://www.capterra.com/p/135003/Slack/) Reason for choosing Zulip Better in terms of pricing and message retention Switched from [Discord](https://www.capterra.com/p/240238/Discord/)[WhatsApp](https://www.capterra.com/p/180345/WhatsApp/)[Slack](https://www.capterra.com/p/135003/Slack/) Message retention and privacy (and read receipts) Review Source LH Lars H. Artistic Director Arts and Crafts Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Excellent ethos-driven communication platform alternative to corporate titans " December 6, 2024 5.0 Pros Its ethos-driven approach and excellent functionality Cons no major issues; sometimes slightly lacking in flexibility between channels/subjects Switched from [Facebook Apps and Tabs](https://www.capterra.com/p/160208/Facebook-Apps-and-Tabs/) Facebook is shameless in its surveillance capitalism Review Source FC Francesca C. Prima Ricercatrice Research Used the software for: 6-12 months ### " a game-changer for team coordination" December 6, 2024 5.0 Zulip keeps everyone in sync without feeling like a chore, it is a game-changer for team coordination Pros I loved the intuitive interface and how effortlessly it allows to communicate, the entire team together or sub-teams in parallel organized sessions Cons I haven't find any cons up to now, really Switched from [Slack](https://www.capterra.com/p/135003/Slack/) options to host your own, free cloud hosting, latex support Review Source HS Henri S. Treasurer Research Used the software for: 2+ years ### "A great private community server" December 6, 2024 5.0 An excellent experience, not intrusive, adaptive Pros It is a Private server The UI is very smart The number of functionalities is great Cons The navigation is complex between channels streams and conversations Review Source SG Stefano G. Researcher Research Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Please use zulip!" December 9, 2024 5.0 Pros Everything works smoothly, you can create channels, manage private messages, share files, organize meetings, be notified of what you care about Cons at the beginning I had a few problems with notifications, but easy to fix Review Source MP Mithil P. Team Member Computer Software Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Zulip - Works for handling large groups." December 6, 2024 4.0 Overall, I find myself using Zulip for large teams, club discussions ans orchestrating multiple groups. Pros It is very fast and has nice interfaces for building interactive bots. Cons I would like to be able to send stickers in chats. And, the UI for replies could be better (I am used a thread like interface) Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Facilitator of edcation Renewables & Environment Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Easy simple clean communication" March 9, 2023 4.0 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. Pros I 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. Cons I 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. Switched from [Slack](https://www.capterra.com/p/135003/Slack/) Way too complicated. Way to many messages. Too difficult to find info quickly. Review Source JF Jarvist F. Assistant Professor / Lecturer Research Used the software for: 2+ years ### "For deep work in a busy world" March 10, 2023 5.0 Much less FOMO than with other team chat products. Pros The 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. Cons It'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. Switched from [Slack](https://www.capterra.com/p/135003/Slack/) 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. Review Source CH Catalin H. Tenured Faculty Research Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Much better than Slack and Mattermost" March 26, 2023 5.0 Pros 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. Cons The 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 . Alternatives considered [Mattermost](https://www.capterra.com/p/170524/Mattermost/) 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. Switched from [Slack](https://www.capterra.com/p/135003/Slack/) 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. Review Source MP Murray P. Assistant Professor Research Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Zulip is affordable and easy to use" March 9, 2023 5.0 Zulip has been crucial for continuous communication and management of my team --- such organization of topics and the throughput that is possible with the chats is not possible through emails. Zulip has definitely been crucial to our productivity Pros Zulip is great because it is open source and not full of ads. This removes all barriers that exist with other apps (like Slack), were you can only see message history up to a certain point, or the need to log into the app to see the message, so that they can advertise to you, or track your location, etc. Basically, Zulip is easy to use, and no funny business Cons maybe some of the interfaces could be improved, like how to make topics in a channel (sometimes writing a message is confused for the topic on the mobile) Alternatives considered [Slack](https://www.capterra.com/p/135003/Slack/) Reason for choosing Zulip I used it (still use it, actually), when I was a postdoc in another team (before I developed my own team) Review Source GD Gianluca D. Associate Professor Higher Education Used the software for: 2+ years ### "A better slack" March 10, 2023 5.0 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. Pros We 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. Cons Integrations with other services are quite complex to setup, For instance, I would have liked a much deeper integration with webex and google calendar. Alternatives considered [Microsoft Teams](https://www.capterra.com/p/168668/Microsoft-Teams/)[Slack](https://www.capterra.com/p/135003/Slack/) Reason for choosing Zulip Zulip is open source. This means that I will not be locked-in, like we have been with slack. Switched from [Slack](https://www.capterra.com/p/135003/Slack/) Slack was simply too expensive.After the switch, I realized that zulip is a better product. Review Source DR Damien R. Operations Director Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Efficient and effective team communication" March 10, 2023 5.0 Pros Threaded chat (stream topics) is the killer feature that you NEED, and all alternative solutions lack. Cons Integration with other products/platforms is less well supported due to the big marketing budgets of Slack etc. compared to Zulip. I.e. other products rarely build a "Zulip integration".That said, Zulip have a "Slack compatible" bridge that tries to reduce this pain, and is generally quite easy to pipe messages into from other systems (via email or via API). Alternatives considered [Google Chat](https://www.capterra.com/p/175800/Chat/)[Rocket.Chat](https://www.capterra.com/p/161575/Rocket-Chat/)[Mattermost](https://www.capterra.com/p/170524/Mattermost/)[Microsoft Teams](https://www.capterra.com/p/168668/Microsoft-Teams/)[Slack](https://www.capterra.com/p/135003/Slack/) Review Source SL Sébastien L. Administrator Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Zulip: a very good tool for team communications" March 10, 2023 4.0 Zulip helped us to get out of the bloated mailbox nightmare. Real time messaging (mattermost, slack, Whatsapp...) could not achieve long term and structured conversations we're having on differents subjects at the same time, and in various teams. Zulip was the perfect match for us. Zulip also has integration possiblities we use : we connected it to our membership billing software/mailing lists software, and get notified when things occurs with theese softwares. Pros In our workflow, differtents teams meet physically on a regulary basis, and some persons may be part of various teams. Between twoo meetings, team members have questions or informations they want to share with the others. Zulip helps a lot with this, keeping all conversations easily findable and readable, while various subjects are tackled by team members. Sharing file with messages is also a feature we use a lot. We use the hosted version wich is very easy to start with. Also, Zulip is an opensource software, and this is very important to us. Zulip is able to feat at the same time to people who do not communicate a lot and prefer emails in their box, as well as others who share a lot of messages. That is a flexibility I did not found elsewhere. Cons Images management may sometimes make Zulip laggy on some devices. Notification system is very powerfull and flexible, but seems to fail on some mobile device, and its configuration is not intuitive for occasional users. Alternatives considered [WhatsApp](https://www.capterra.com/p/180345/WhatsApp/)[Mattermost](https://www.capterra.com/p/170524/Mattermost/)[Slack](https://www.capterra.com/p/135003/Slack/) Reason for choosing Zulip The conversational approach of Zulip seamed very strong. We also wanted to go with open source software, and this is a strong point with Zulip. Review Source Germo G. BI Architect and developer Computer Software Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "streams and topics makes this communication platform very unique and useful" February 11, 2022 5.0 communication in several open source communities. internal communication in projects. 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. Reason for choosing Zulip because of the unique concept of streams and topics Switched from [Discord](https://www.capterra.com/p/240238/Discord/)[Unity](https://www.capterra.com/p/158591/Unity/)[Mattermost](https://www.capterra.com/p/170524/Mattermost/)[Microsoft Teams](https://www.capterra.com/p/168668/Microsoft-Teams/) because of the unique concept of streams and topics Review Source Tjwan O. Member of the board Public Policy Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Excellent tool for group collaboration purposes!" March 9, 2023 4.0 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. Pros The feature that within channels a multitude of topics are possible and the ease to subscribe or stop following specific channels. Cons The 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. Switched from [Slack](https://www.capterra.com/p/135003/Slack/) Zulip gave us a much better overview of different channels and associated topics. Review Source JG Joshua G. Assistant Professor of Computer Science Research Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Zulip is awesome!" March 9, 2023 5.0 Love it! I use it for my research group, for collaborations both within and outside the group, and for teaching, both for managing course staff and for interacting with students in the class. Pros Threading & thread titles like email (unlike Slack or MS Teams). But b/c its focused on just one part of the organization, it helps keep my actual email less cluttered. Built-in support for math in LaTeX is helpful for research. Ability to add guests lets us have collaborators join our group instance but only have access to certain streams (stream : Zulip :: channel : Slack). Privacy features are great to have a mix of discussions. Cons Originally I felt like I wanted a more robust feature for keeping track of read/unread messages. But having used it now for several years, turns out I didn't really need that feature and get along just fine without it. Organizing conversations in Zulip works great! Reason for choosing Zulip My organization already pays for Slack and MS Teams. We chose Zulip because it works so much better! Switched from [Microsoft Teams](https://www.capterra.com/p/168668/Microsoft-Teams/)[Slack](https://www.capterra.com/p/135003/Slack/) Came for the thread titles and math support, stayed for that and everything else! Review Source Sjur M. Chief Engineer Higher Education Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Zulip one of the best team collaboration tools" March 10, 2023 4.0 Zulip has turned out to be a very nice and friendly tool for team collaboration, as well as for keeping an eye on development (through GitHub integration). Pros Ease of setup, ease of use, and integration with other tools and services. Cons I would like more flexible integration with GitHub, without much setup. Better and easier IRC integration. Reason for choosing Zulip Price, open source, integration with external services, support for both off-line (e-mail like) interchanges as well as direct messaging. Review Source MP Martin P. Contributor Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Great for open source collaboration" March 10, 2023 5.0 As an open source organisation, it greatly improves how we communicate with each other and also support new users. Pros As an international voluntary community we use this to great effect to add timely communications, discuss issues and arrange meetings. Timezone support is very important to us. Cons There is some in the community who don't like Zulip; in particular some find the topics difficult, though this is not an issue for me. Review Source Andrés G. Research Associate Higher Education Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Best Team Messaging Solution out there" March 10, 2023 5.0 I've used all sorts of communication solutions over the years, from irc or mostly emails, slack, Microsoft teams, etc etc. Zulip is by far my favorite so far, it's key principle is simple but impactful: organize conversations by topic, not just as a long stream of discussions. Pros Zulip organizes conversations much better than other tools I've used (or have to use in other contexts), like Slack, and Microsoft Teams goes without saying. This is the key selling point IMO for Zulip, it's much easier to keep track of conversations that matter to you and ignore others, as things are organized thematically primarily, not just chronologically. Cons The mobile client is not very polished and responsive. It does its job, but it's a bit clunky in some regards and it's not great, compared to the desktop experience. Alternatives considered [Microsoft Teams](https://www.capterra.com/p/168668/Microsoft-Teams/)[Slack](https://www.capterra.com/p/135003/Slack/) Switched from [Slack](https://www.capterra.com/p/135003/Slack/) Initially because of an open-source project that used Zulip for communication, then I was utterly convinced by the concept topics and streams. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Associate Professor Research Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Zulip for academic research" March 15, 2023 4.0 It is certainly superior to Slack, but I should note that I have a high tolerance for bugs. The support for academics (i.e. free) is incredibly valuable - we don't generate income in a regular fashion, it comes in spurts. Pros The topics are very useful for organizing discussion The ability to move material under the appropriate topics is very useful. You can see all of the important (active) discussions under a stream at a glance. It is great that you can mark certain topics as completed because this makes it easy to assign to-dos on the fly. Cons The inability to easily upload photos or content from your phone (compared to Slack or other messaging apps) is a big downside. On OSX Zulip somehow keeps crashing. I also wish the team's custom emojis appeared at the top of the emoji list (true of Slack). Switched from [SearchMy for Slack](https://www.capterra.com/p/210771/SearchMy-for-Slack/) At first because we could have an unlimited history that was searchable for free. After about 2 weeks we got used to the product and found it to be a superior communication tool to Slack. Review Source Alejandro G. Researcher Research Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Zulip is essential for running a succesful research group" March 9, 2023 5.0 Everything feels well done, and it's not a RAM hoarder unlike other similar systems. 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. Switched from [Slack](https://www.capterra.com/p/135003/Slack/) 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. Review Source JA Jaan A. Chief Executive Officer Research Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Zulip is much better than Slack" March 9, 2023 5.0 Overall, Zulip is amazing and much better than any other alternatives. Pros Because Zulip is open source, most things that are NOT possible in Slack are possible in Zulip: from automatic calendar notifications, through to integrating with artificial intelligence products such as ChatGPT. Cons As Zulip is open source, some of the user experience has rough edges (e.g. drafts are a little confusing at first). But onboarding is easy enough for the 1000+ people who support our nonprofit work. Alternatives considered [Slack](https://www.capterra.com/p/135003/Slack/) Reason for choosing Zulip It is much easier to use and easier to integrate. Switched from [Slack](https://www.capterra.com/p/135003/Slack/) Slack was very difficult to integrate with the software we needed. Review Source Christopher A. IAS Associate Professor Research Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "An excellent Slack replacement " March 10, 2023 5.0 I love Zulip. I'm doing everything I can to convert my Slack colleagues to Zulip. It truly promotes a systematic threaded way to carry on asynchronous and realtime conversations with technical flair (LaTeX, code blocks, etc). The sponsorship for the standard cloud plan is truly appreciated in our research group. I hope in the near future that the UI will improve to be more modern/slick. Pros I administer Zulip for my research group as well as for other collaborative clusters between my university and other institutions. One of the things I love most about Zulip is its threading feature, which allows me to organize conversations by topic and easily follow discussions, even when they become lengthy. This feature has greatly improved the efficiency of my team's communication, as we are able to keep track of multiple conversations and projects simultaneously without becoming overwhelmed.Zulip is designed for technical discussions as well. We really appreciated the LaTeX equation rendering and code blocks along with other markdown-like formatting.Lastly, as an academic research group, we truly appreciate Zulip's sponsoring of our standard plan. This really helps. We want to encourage all of our students to use Zulip but it's hard to gauge how large of a plan we should get (this is the same problem with other similar services). The Zulip sponsorship allows us to easily promote the usage of the tool to all students and let them organically get accustomed to the platform without worrying about cost and available user slots. The standard cloud plan allows us not to worry about deploying the service on our servers where down times are bound to happen due to university network maintenance. I think this is a key reason why I encourage every research group to immediately stop using Slack and switch to Zulip. Cons The biggest gripe I have with Zulip is the UI. Compared to Slack or other messaging platforms, it is definitely not as slick. There are a lot of lined boxes and strong lines. I think better use of shaded colors and lighter lines would make the UI more beautiful to look at. Also, it creates a lot of unused space when you scroll down to the last readable message. It's not a good use of space. Further, the look of a DM conversation has a different shaded background for some reason. There should be a better UX when dealing with a large number of topics in a stream. This is not really problem in our own Zulip groups but in the Zulip Community group, there is just so much activity. Topics that are "resolved" probably should be moved to a searchable archive in its stream so that it doesn't "pollute" the stream with noise. This makes it easier to browse through the active topics and of course if the user wishes, they can browse through the archive as well. Alternatives considered [Mattermost](https://www.capterra.com/p/170524/Mattermost/) Reason for choosing Zulip Mattermost is expensive. Free self-deployment is possible, but for our purposes, we didn't want to manage yet another self-deployed tool for a number of reasons. It also treats threaded conversations like Slack. Switched from [Slack](https://www.capterra.com/p/135003/Slack/) The free plan for Slack has only a 90 day retention of messages. We lost a lot of important discussions. And I always knew Slack's threaded conversation UX was a bit gimmicky, users we're replying directly in the channel and not in the thread. When reading about Zulip, it is clear that they though about the design and UX of threaded conversations from the start. Review Source Igor K. PhD Student Research Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Perfect for research groups" March 9, 2023 5.0 Pros I chose Zulip as an open source solution with a good cloud hosting experience and have very happy. For researchers like me, the built in Latex support is a god send, and I really appreciate the threading interface Cons The mobile app can sometimes be a bit desychronized, but this is the same for slack and its competitors Alternatives considered [Mattermost](https://www.capterra.com/p/170524/Mattermost/) Reason for choosing Zulip I preferred the zulip interface and the educational support was better Switched from [Slack](https://www.capterra.com/p/135003/Slack/) Price and lack of self hosting option Review Source Similar Products Featured ## Related categories [Team Communication](https://www.capterra.com/team-communication-software/)[Internal Communications](https://www.capterra.com/internal-communications-software/)[Collaboration](https://www.capterra.com/collaboration-software/) ## Send me user reviews about this product ### Fill out the form and we'll send a list of the top-rated software based on real user reviews directly to your inbox.