Zulip Reviews

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.

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!

Pros

Zulip is a good software , I liked the chat feature and controls/restrictions we can add for the specific users.

Cons

Not as such , most of the things are good

Pros

It'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!)

Cons

I'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.

Alternatives Considered

Google Chat, Telegram, Rocket.Chat, Discord, Mattermost and Slack

Reasons for Choosing 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).

Switched From

Slack

Reasons for Switching to 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.

Pros

Zulip is much better than email for our team conversations. It is much more organized and makes it easier to find old but relevant messages. I like the stream/topic way of organizing things. The search history is great and it is convenient that the 'all messages' screen offers a chronological overview of all messages. You can choose who can follow which stream, it has great third-party integrations (Tweets show up quite nicely).

Cons

The app no longer shows badges when there are new messages. The desktop version is great but the app has some small issues (for example if you select on the topic, sometimes the message box disappears).

Alternatives Considered

Slack

Reasons for Switching to Zulip

Zulip has a better message organization structure with streams and topics. It supports research and non-profits and it is open-source.

Pros

Zulip's threading model is the best. It's also clearly built for people who use it constantly: good keyboard shortcuts, reliable and fast even with loads of messages, and thoughtful UI choices.

Cons

The mobile client has improved a lot but is still less polished than the desktop experience.

Alternatives Considered

Slack

Reasons for Switching to Zulip

- Zulip's threading and general support for substantive discussions is *way* better than Slacks- Slack makes it impossible to read all your messages or see if someone has responded

Pros

Zulip 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.

Cons

I don't see any major problem with Zulip, except maybe the possibility to create sub-instances within a given organization.

Alternatives Considered

Mattermost and Microsoft Teams

Reasons for Choosing Zulip

Slack is awful to use, slow, and it became very expensive.

Switched From

Slack

Reasons for Switching to Zulip

Zulip is overall the best and the only one to include Latex, and all other products are badly designed.

Pros

The mix between the real-timeness of chat, the persistence of email and the threaded nature of forums is just ideal for team communication.

Cons

We're just really happy with it. I don't have any complaints at all.

Alternatives Considered

Discord

Switched From

Telegram

Reasons for Switching to Zulip

Zulip is FOSS and thus you can trust it doesn't track or exploit your data in any way.

Pros

The topics feature allows communications to be organised within a channel. The web version of Zulip is very intuitive and all the settings are easily adjusted.

Cons

The home page of the mobile app appears blank if all new notifications have been read. It would be good to have something there to say "no new notifications", or some quick action buttons to write a new post.In the mobile app, if I post something with topic X, then post something with topic Y, and then later on pay something with topic X again, the topic X messages aren't grouped together unless I specifically choose to see topic X only. I think it would be good if the new topic X message could be placed directly after the latest topic X correspondence so that all messages of the same topic are grouped together, without having to filter for that topic only.

Alternatives Considered

Slack

Reasons for Switching to Zulip

On Slack, messages auto-delete after 90 days unless you pay to upgrade.

Pros

Zulip does everything useful that Slack does, with a plus: channels / streams can be better organized within topics instead of an endless chronological flow of messages. Great support. Open-source.

Cons

Zulip is not that pretty, could self-extend to fit the entire screen, and could provide file previews. But other than that it provides a clean view, is not chaotic like Discord and

Alternatives Considered

Discord, Mattermost and Rocket Matter

Reasons for Choosing Zulip

Slack changed the rules and chose to hide the history of old messages in the free version. Can't afford the pricing.

Switched From

Slack

Reasons for Switching to Zulip

I tried several, all of them had limitations. Zulip was the best option, with all Slack features and a plus (organization by topics). Open-source, and free for research organizations. Great.

Pros

I had used Slack before, and found it to be incredibly noisy, distracting and a productivity sink rather than a source. Zulip OTOH is designed to give the user fine grained control over what they choose to pay attention to. Streams and topics keep conversations organized, searchable and allow users to ignore things that would be distracting or irrelevant.

Cons

We now have 4 years of communication in Zulip which makes searching very important to revisit past conversations. I sometimes find it challenging to utilize the search functionality well. And if and when I find a message from the conversation that I want to review, it's non-intuitive to navigate from the search results to that full conversation. It's a minor inconvenience though.

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft Teams and Slack

Reasons for Switching to Zulip

While we currently use the cloud version of Zulip, it was important for us to have the option to self-host and to be able to extract our own data. And with Zulip being open source, we're less prone to vendor lock-in.

Pros

We 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.

Cons

We 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.)

Alternatives Considered

Slack, Basecamp and monday.com

Reasons for Switching to Zulip

We tested the other products and Zulip was the only product that really met our needs.

Pros

Zulip’s people are very nice and helpful. They helped my a lot to do the importation from Slack. And answered kindly my questions. This is very much appreciated. Zulip has a lot of great features. Still some need to improve or develop in my opinion but it’s a great and useful tool. Thank you !

Cons

The user interface is a bit too geek. And the iOS app would gain to improve.

Alternatives Considered

Discord, Mattermost, Rocket Matter and Microsoft Teams

Reasons for Choosing Zulip

Slack was way too expensive for an informal community of people like us.

Switched From

Slack

Reasons for Switching to Zulip

The importation of Slack’s channels history. And nice and helpful people at Zulip. Open source. The overall look and user experience of the app.

Pros

My favorite part is the threading system - it's a very a nice way to keep conversations organized.

Cons

My only complaint is that some features are available on Web but not on the Android app, for example linking to messages.

Alternatives Considered

Discord and Slack

Reasons for Switching to Zulip

Zulip's Open Source plan is second to none for projects like ours. It's wonderful that Zulip supports Open Source software like this!

Pros

The threading model with the ability to stay on topic.

Cons

The mobile app can make use of some improvements.

Alternatives Considered

Slack

Reasons for Choosing Zulip

Zulip makes the best of both worlds, our Mailing list and the IRC

Reasons for Switching to Zulip

Because Zulip is Free and Open-Source. It is easy to split out conversations and sty on topic.

Pros

zulip is amazing for my research group. We love being able to format LaTeX equations and the stream/topic organization makes it easy to pick up on conversations

Cons

for mobile you can only be signed in on one account at a time and it's a little annoying to switch. Hyperlinking is also slightly clunky in that you have to use the markdown formatting rather than just typing ctrl-k or equivalent. But these are minor points

Alternatives Considered

Mattermost and Slack

Reasons for Switching to Zulip

latex formatting, open source community + vibe

Pros

Great thread and stream management, in a single view you know the message and updates you need to take care of.

Cons

Maybe fewer integration possibilities than some competitors (enterprise products) but it is fine for our usages and we will check some integration using Zulip's API and/or Zappier.

Pros

Zulip has a very intuitive & made for team collaboration

Cons

The user interface is good, but they can improve the user experience. Make it easy for teams to go back & forth on the topics, sometimes it becomes very cluttered when working on more than one project.

Pros

Zulip has strong threading and topic delineation. This is different than many other fora or chat-based services, which plop lots of things into a single window and go. There are two tiers of organization, first stream and then topic. This allows me to rapidly contextualize or pick up different threads. And more importantly, it gives a good topic-based history on topics when new people need to hop in.And it has latex support and code blocks, both of which are very useful.

Cons

Using highly threaded tools requires a bit of upfront familiarization.

Pros

The most important thing about Zulip is its two-level nested chat model, with streams and topics. It sounds like a small thing, but it makes using Zulip a completely different (and dramatically more useful/productive) experience than any other real-time chat tool I've ever used. On Slack, Discord, etc. there's always multiple conversations happening in a single channel, so things get mixed up, and if you're not present for a fast-moving conversation there's no way to catch up. With topics, Zulip makes catching up incredibly easy, even if you're gone on vacation for weeks. This enables it to more-or-less completely replace email, which those other tools can't come close to.

Cons

Some people don't like the mobile app very much, but I don't use it much so I can't really comment.

Pros

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.)

Cons

The UI is not as pretty as its competitors, but its functionality more than makes up for it.

Pros

I like the threading model much better than others

Cons

The lack of integrated bots makes it quite hard to build easy workflows

Alternatives Considered

Slack

Switched From

Mattermost and Slack

Pros

Streams with topics, appearance, special plans for academic teams.

Cons

Mobile application could be improved. Add groups over streams could be useful.

Pros

Zulip allows you to collaborate using a near-mailing list experience without it feeling archaic. It differs from other tools like Slack or Discourse by having a good model of separation by topic. Conversations are kept on topic which provides focus and your messages don't get lost in the noise. It makes it easy to split off tangential conversations by easily moving messages to a dedicated topic. When a topic is resolved --- for example, if you're talking about a bug in your code --- then you can mark it as resolved.If you just need to chat to one person in the Zulip team, then you can direct message them.It also has a read-only mode, so a sign-up is not necessary for others just trying to find information in our Zulip.

Cons

The UI can feel a bit clunky, but at the same time that's part of it's charm. It's simple and keeps you focused on the topic at hand.

Pros

Zulip 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.

Cons

It'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.