It's structured real-time communication without the chaos of Slack. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Some users have complained about the app in the past. Hard to navigate. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Zulip allows us to create not only "Channels", but also "Topics" under each Channel. This feature is unique to Zulip and it allows us to classify a huge amount of posts/discussions/information in a neat way. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

When two messages are posted by the same person (regardless of time interval between the two), they are merged and look like a single post. It would be great if we could post two messages as indivisual ones. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It allows users to organize conversations by topic, making it easy to follow discussions and find information Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The unique threading model and features overwhelming, requiring time to adjust and learn Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

We have used Zulip as the internal messaging platform for the BARC research center at University of Copenhagen for over two years. Users are BARC researchers, visitors and students. It is used for everything from organizing social activities to coordinating research projects and papers. The user interface is friendly and the threaded nature of channels is powerful. We will definitely keep using it for the foreseeable future. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Getting used to threads can be confusing for new users (sometimes messages end up in the wrong thread by mistake). Also, don't expect a lot of integrations with other tools -- at least we tend to use Zulip as stand-alone, using links to point to external resources. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Zulip works differently from most other team chat software, and takes getting used to. Both the core concepts (channels vs topics) and the layout of the UI are a bit different than you might expect if you are used to tools such as Slack or Discord. However, I think that the way Zulip works ends up being much better than those other tools once you get used to it. The compact,no-nonsense UI gets out of your way, and the enforced hierarchy of channels and topics makes conversations easier to organize. It is also easy to extend and integrate with other software through custom bots, linkifiers, and so on. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

In some places, Zulip can lag behind the competition when it comes to features or performance. The Android app sometimes takes a while to connect to the server and fetch new messages, vs. Slack's app which often feels instant. Management of permissions and user groups feels under-developed. For example, there is a user group feature, but no way to automatically grant access to private channels based on group membership. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Zulip's structured model is the best way to keep the knowledge from chats organized and findable -- which is great if you're scatter-brained, and great if you have new people joining your organization who will need to find knowledge embedded in past chats. Every message has a "channel" and a "topic", which means it's easy to find related messages and the history of a given topic (even if it stretches back over weeks or months). Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It's often not an app that people already have installed on their phones -- I think for people more tangentially involved in an organization, it feels like "yet another space to pay attention to." Although I'm not sure it's worse than "yet another Slack." Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Finally a single place to focus all discussions and topics, without the scattering of a mailing list. This gives value to the group and makes it possible to trace discussions and documents that may go back even months or years. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Many of the people who use it complain about the very reason we, as administrators of the group, recommended its use: the fact that you have to be registered and use an application other than email to post. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

First of all, Zulip has basically all the default features you expect from a messenger:

* There is a desktop app to install, but it also works in the browser.

* There are mobile apps too (some extra words on these later).

* You need to create an account to get it. It can be free to join, or invite only. Login is possible with username & password or single sign on providers like Google, Github etc.

* There are private areas with restricted access as well as public areas. And of course there is private messaging between a single user and multiple users. Of course there are also Webhook integrations for receiving messages from the outside world (e.g. Github notifications) and bots you can integrate.

* You can bookmark messages for later.

* Begun messages are sent as drafts (as many as you want)

* You can directly ping people and jump to your reactions/mentions.

That is our everyday use. There are fancy features like commands with bots, statistics, integrations, but I really need them much so I don't know the latest state.

So far I didn't notice anything "missing" compared to other tools.

Now here comes what is different and special about it: Zulip has a unique approach on how discussions are organized. Well actually it's not that unique, as it works more similar to the structure of bulletin boards. But it is unique compared to other chat tools.

Every message is sent to a dedicated channel. Just like in IRC, Slack, or Discord. Then each message ends up in a certain topic that only exists inside the channel. You can pick existing topics (or it is auto-selected if you respond to an existing message), you can create a new topic or if you don't care at all you just use the default (no topic).

While other solutions like Teams, Slack or Mattermost offer "Threads" based on a single message, these threads tend to vanish as the original message and they are not "core" to the user interface.

So why is this such an improvement?

First of all: You cannot manage thousands of channels. Because people first of all need to find it and then join and eventually leave it all the time. But channels are a much broader topic.

Let me give you an example on what we use channels for: a channel for the production servers, a channel for the test server, one for moderation purposes and one for each software component we provide. So people who are interested or responsible for a certain thing subscribe to this channel.

Now inside the channels there are new questions or topics opened: A certain downtime, a certain bug or feature, consistently sent push notifications from an uptime monitor or Github.

Obviously not everybody is interested in every topic. I would like to know what is going on with our desktop client, but I am not interested in every Github issue or pull request opened - but the maintainer is. So I just mute just the topics I am not interested in. But all new topics I get a chance to look at and decide whether to approach them

Topics can also be marked as resolved. A feature most commonly used in "support"-alike discussions. And I can search for topics by name. Helping me find older cases or some special topics where we stored some knowledge. Our production server channel has a "how-to" topic where there are many commands stored that we occasionally need. Doesn't that belong into a better knowledge management tool? Well maybe, but only if you have one…

In the ui you can watch the combined feed of all channels, or all the messages of a topic. There used to be a way to see the combined feed of a channel, but it seems to have been removed. I assume because it used to be a problem to answer to the wrong topic based on which message was currently selected.

Speaking of which: Posting in wrong channels is a thing - especially for new joiners. But it is possible to move messages to other topics and/or channels (just a single one, or all starting from that one). There is a permission model around this, but to me it seems crucial that everybody can do this and actively tries to keep these things because… Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Communication is hard. Efficient communication is even harder. It takes some level of discipline to keep things sorted. Not everybody is willing to invest in that. It is important to understand the reasons for that, because for me the success of introducing Zulips concepts stands and falls with the acceptance of users.

If you try to run your organization on Zulip and you can't convince people to use it right you lose the benefits of it and the incurred drawbacks will drive people to other tools (potentially outside of your control).

This happened at FAForever, but since we are all volunteers it did not matter to me. Many sub-teams decided to either move to the official FAForever discord or even form their own with their own set of rules, way of working, permissions etc. This leads to a lot of unnecessary friction trying to reach people across multiple platforms. And I would assume this is not a feasible approach in a company environment…

In my opinion Zulip has two strengths:

* Organizing multifaceted discussions in a structured way serving the needs for different people with different focus points

* Particularly suitable for messages with contents of software developers

However, the sub-teams that did not accept Zulips were mostly

* not software developers, but mostly content creators

* working in a closed bubble with little need to interact with other teams

* indifferent about finding past content in structured ways

So for these groups, Zulip had provided little benefit. And on the downside there is to say: Zulips strengths work best on a desktop computer or notebook, but not on mobile devices. There are mobile apps, but in my opinion the complexity in the ui cannot be simplified to touch based usage. Or maybe it is possible, but the Zulips UX does not offer it. But I personally think we just hit the natural limits of mobile apps here. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Zulip serves as a communication hub for a dispersed community of small groups. It provides privacy for each of the groups and also the flexibility of creating channels for collaboration among them. One of the best features of the platform is the ability to thread discussions within the private channels. No more having to sort through different topics that come in during the same time frame. To be able to discuss specific issues in a single thread within a private channel is a game changer. It isn't enough to have posts in chronological order. We need to be able to sort by topic. Zulip does this and I don't know any other platform that does.

Also, it is private and self-contained and it is open source. You don't get nagging to upgrade or or pay more for something. What a relief! Most of our users use zulip for our extended community only, which means that anything that comes to them through the platform is separate from their other media streams.

Finally, there is a feature list that is a mile long. It seems like every week or so I discovered something that zulip does that I didn't know it did. Kudos to the development team!

I am an enthusiastic advocate of Zulip. I think some of my friends get tired of me nudging them to make better use of its capabilities. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The downside to zulip is that it is unfamiliar. Users are inclined to resist using it because it isn't slack or something else that they already know. Very frustrating. Moreover, the extra functionality is sometimes difficult for people to grasp. Once they do, it's beautiful.

Another downside may be strictly cosmetic. It doesn't have a lot of the flash and flowers that make some communication portals look pretty. As an administrator I prefer function over aesthetics, but I suspect some users are disappointed that there aren't more ways to beautify the interface. They Wonder if zulip is a second class substitute for the more flashy stuff they've used before. Be assured that it isn't, but I wonder if some users think that way.

I think the app could stand some tweaking to enhance usability and attaching files take some getting used to. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Zulip organized conversation into threads, making it easy to follow and participate in discussions Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Zulip’s unique threading model abd feautures can be overwhelming for new users Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.