Zulip
Zulip is a powerful, open source group chat application.
Description from awesome-selfhosted (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Still maintained? Yes: 808 commits in the last 90 days, latest release 12.3 (Sep 2026).
Also an alternative to Slack and Microsoft Teams.
At a glance
Zulip quick facts
- Health score
- 88/100 GOOD
- Stars
- 26,139
- Last commit
- today (Oct 2026)
- Latest release
- 12.3, Sep 2026
- Licence
- Apache-2.0
Top alternatives to Zulip
Full rankings: Slack alternatives, Microsoft Teams alternatives
In its own words
The project's README opens: "Zulip is an open-source organized team chat app with unique topic-based threading that combines the best of email and chat to make remote work productive and delightful. Fortune 500 companies, leading open source projects, and thousands of other organizations use Zulip every day. Zulip is the only modern team chat app that is designed for both live and asynchronous conversations."
Why it ranks here
Health score explained
Zulip scores 88/100, #17 of 44 in Communication - Custom Communication Systems: 808 commits in the last 90 days earn 35.0 of 35 points, the latest release (12.3, 1 month ago) earns 25.0 of 25, 26,139 stars add 17.7 of 20, an active, unarchived repository keeps 10 and no advertised Docker image leaves the final 10 unclaimed. That places it in the good band (70 and above). The biggest shortfall is Docker support, worth 10.0 more points.
Recomputed nightly from the GitHub API. How the score is calculated.
- Commit activity 35.0 / 35
808 commits in 90 days (30+ scores full marks)
- Release recency 25.0 / 25
12.3 released 1 month ago
- Stars 17.7 / 20
26k stars on GitHub (logarithmic)
- Not archived 10.0 / 10
Repository is active
- Docker support biggest shortfall 0.0 / 10
No Docker support advertised
Commit activity
- 808
- Last 90 days
- 5,149
- Last 12 months
- today
- Last push
Ranked #17 of 44 tools in Communication - Custom Communication Systems by health , between Continuwuity (#16) and Element (#18) .
Details
| Licence | Apache-2.0 |
| Platforms | Python |
| Latest release | 12.3 · 1 month ago |
| Stars | 26,139 |
| Open issues | 1,159 |
| Docker | Not advertised |
| Repository | zulip/zulip ↗ |
Zulip vs its top 5 alternatives
Active tools that share a comparison page or a category with Zulip (Communication - Custom Communication Systems), scored on the same five terms.
| Tool | Health | Stars | Licence | Last commit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rocket.Chat | 99 | 46k | MIT | today |
| Chatwoot | 98 | 39k | ⊘ Proprietary | today |
| Mattermost | 98 | 39k | ⊘ Proprietary | today |
| Zulip (this tool) | 88 | 26k | Apache-2.0 | today |
| Element | 87 | 14k | Apache-2.0 | today |
| Tinode | 87 | 14k | GPL-3.0 | 5 days ago |
Zulip: common questions
What does Zulip replace?
Repoly lists Zulip as an open-source alternative to Slack and Microsoft Teams. Each comparison page ranks every alternative by the same health score, so you can see where Zulip stands against the others.
Is Zulip still maintained?
Zulip had 808 commits in the last 90 days and its last push was today; the latest tagged release, 12.3, is from 1 month ago. Repoly recomputes this nightly.