Slack dominates enterprise adoption with 750,000+ daily active users and superior integrations, while Zulip offers thread-based organization, lower costs ($0-$10/user/month vs $6.67-$12.50), and better message searchability for knowledge-heavy teams.
Slack vs Zulip — Side-by-side comparison on A Versus B
Choose Slack if your organization prioritizes app ecosystem richness, mainstream vendor ecosystem, and can absorb higher costs for superior market integration and brand recognition. Choose Zulip if you value message organization, searchability, budget efficiency, want self-hosting control, or operate a knowledge-intensive team that benefits from topic-based threading and full message history access.
Cloud-based team messaging platform used by 750,000+ daily active users across enterprises.
Open-source team chat platform emphasizing organized conversations with topic-based threading and 50,000-100,000 active users.
Structured comparison data for Slack vs Zulip with 201 attributes.
Paid Workspaces/Users (Enterprise Adoption)
Annual Subscription Cost (Pro, 100 users)
Maximum video call participants (free tier)
Monthly Subscription Cost (Pro/Standard)
Maximum Video Conference Participants (Free)
Cost Per User (Annual, Lowest Paid Tier)
Monthly Cost Per User (Standard Tier, Annual Billing)
Maximum Video Conference Participants (Standard Plan)
Paying Organizations/Enterprise Customers
Slack vs Zulip — Attribute Category Vocabulary
Taxonomy of attribute categories used to classify comparison data for Slack vs Zulip.
Which platform is cheaper for a 50-person team?
Zulip is significantly cheaper. For 50 users: Slack costs $167-$312/month (at $6.67-$12.50/user); Zulip's Pro plan costs $99/month flat rate or $0 with self-hosting. Annual savings with Zulip: $800-$2,556 per year for a 50-person team.
Can I switch from Slack to Zulip and keep my message history?
Yes, Zulip provides migration tools to import Slack workspaces, including channels, users, and message history. However, thread context may require manual reorganization due to differing threading models. Slack to Zulip migrations typically take 1-2 hours for teams under 100 users.
Why is Zulip's topic-based threading better for large teams?
Zulip's topics organize conversations hierarchically within channels (Channel → Topic → Messages), preventing reply thread fragmentation. In Slack, multiple reply threads in a channel create navigation clutter. Zulip teams report 40% faster message discovery due to this structured approach, especially beneficial for teams over 50 members.
Does Slack or Zulip have better integrations with Google Workspace?
Slack has more Google Workspace integrations (Google Drive, Sheets, Calendar, Docs). Zulip supports essential Google integrations but fewer specialized ones. For Google-heavy workflows, Slack is superior. However, both support OAuth authentication with Google accounts.
Yes, Zulip is open-source and can be self-hosted on your own infrastructure (Linux servers, Docker). This eliminates recurring SaaS costs beyond server maintenance, making it ideal for regulated industries (healthcare, finance) or large enterprises requiring on-premises deployment for compliance.