Zulip
Topic-based team chat designed for both live and async conversations
Free self-hosted, Cloud free for small teams, $8/user/mo Standard
open-source self-hosted chat async
About Zulip
Zulip is an open-source team chat app with a unique topic-based threading model. Every message belongs to a topic within a stream, so conversations never get tangled. Ideal for remote and async teams. Self-host for free or use Zulip Cloud.
Highlights
- ✓ Topic-based threading keeps conversations organized
- ✓ Designed for asynchronous communication
- ✓ 100+ native integrations and webhooks
- ✓ Full-text search across entire message history
Limitations
- ✗ Topic-threading model has a learning curve
- ✗ Smaller ecosystem than Slack
- ✗ UI feels more utilitarian than modern competitors
Detailed Comparisons
Last updated: 2026-03-01