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React Server
ZulipZulip is recommended for organizations and teams that value open-source software, require structured threading for discussions, and want to maintain organized communication channels. It's also ideal for remote teams or any group that engages in complex, multi-topic dialogues.
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Disclosure: I work on Zulip full-time. Trying to be honest about the annoying parts too.
I've used Zulip for 2 years for work. I'm in India and my teammates are spread across a few continents, so most of the people I work with are asleep while I'm working.
Topics are the reason it works. Every channel is split into named conversations, so when I come back after a couple of days off I read the list of topic names instead of the messages. I can usually tell from the titles which two or three are mine and skip the rest. In Slack I'd end up reading a whole channel just to find out none of it applied to me.
Search benefits from the same thing. Old conversations are still filed under a name, so finding something from a year ago is normally quick.
It does take some getting used to. New people generally need a week or two before naming a topic stops feeling like extra effort, and a few never really take to it.
Based on our record, Zulip seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 67 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.
Zulip is building the world’s best collaboration platform, and we’re committed to keeping it 100% open source. Zulip is the only modern team chat app designed for both live and asynchronous conversations. Our product serves as the communication hub for businesses, open-source projects, educators and communities around the world. We’re looking for a senior backend/infrastructure engineer to join our small core team... - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
Zulip’s design solves a problem most chat tools struggle with: conversations getting messy over time. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
Zulip is a self-hosted team chat platform built around topic-based threading. Every message belongs to a stream (like a channel) and a topic within that stream, so conversations stay organized even when dozens happen in parallel. This is fundamentally different from Slack and Teams where channels are a single chronological feed that becomes unreadable at scale. Zulip replaces Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Discord... - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
This does not bode well. Matrix is honestly not good, as someone who has tried to use it. It's slow, janky, often unstable, and poorly standardized. My suggestion: https://threema.com/en/products/work (hosted) or https://zulip.com/ (OSS self-hosted). - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
Zulip is open source and generously supports open-source projects like ours with a free cloud plan. Its channel-and-topic model makes it easier to keep discussions focused, follow ongoing threads, and resurface past knowledge through powerful search features. - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
Slack - A messaging app for teams who see through the Earth!
Telegram - Telegram is a messaging app with a focus on speed and security. It’s superfast, simple and free.
Element.io - Secure messaging app with strong end-to-end encryption, advanced group chat privacy settings, secure video calls for teams, encrypted communication using Matrix open network. Riot.im is now Element.
Mattermost - Mattermost is an open source alternative to Slack.
WhatsApp - WhatsApp Messenger: More than 1 billion people in over 180 countries use WhatsApp to stay in touch with friends and family, anytime and anywhere.
Discord - Step up your game with a modern voice & text chat app. Crystal clear voice, multiple server and channel support, mobile apps, and more.