Case studies

Zulip’s organized team chat app makes communication dramatically more efficient than other popular apps like Slack and Microsoft Teams, which push teams towards chaotic and disruptive communication patterns.

But don't just take our word for it. Across diverse, demanding organizations in business, education and research, and open-source projects and communities, the case studies below feature Zulip users describing in detail how Zulip supports and transforms communication for the better.

Business

• Efficient distributed team management at iDrift AS

  While Slack worked reasonably well for real-time chat, busy Slack channels hindered async discussions. iDrift AS evaluated and adopted Zulip in 2020.

• Easy communication for 1000 agents at GUT contact

  GUT contact offers flexibility to work from one of 10 offices across 3 countries, or from home. Zulip keeps teams in sync across all job functions.

• Managing hundreds of projects at End Point Dev

  For nearly a decade, Zulip has been a virtual office for End Point’s distributed team. Discussing projects in Zulip channels keeps everyone informed.

• Worldwide operations and AI at WindBorne

  Zulip is WindBorne's irreplaceable hub for coordinating work ranging from balloon launches around the globe to developing state-of-the-art AI models.

• More efficient communication than Slack at Semsee

  New Semsee employees adapt easily to Zulip’s organized conversations. They quickly develop an intuition for when to start a new topic, and what topic names work well.

• Open distributed communication at Atolio

  Since February 2020, Zulip’s organized team chat has enabled the open communication culture Atolio’s founders wanted.

Education and research

• Organized chat for 1000s of students at TUM

  Prior to adopting Zulip, instructors had cycled through product after product in search of a way to effectively manage communication among their 30-50 person course staff and 1400-2000 students at a time.

• Communication hub across 6 continents at UCSD

  With students logging in at all hours of the day, Zulip’s topic model is key for finding materials and participating in discussions. Zulip’s rich functionality smoothed out many aspects of remote communication.

• Connecting across generations at the National University of Córdoba

  The Mathematics, Astronomy, Physics and Computing (FAMAF) department tried moving to Slack. However, without a software budget, the 90-day message history limit on Slack’s free plan was a major frustration.

• Research collaboration at scale in the Lean mathematical community

  Zulip’s unique combination of topic-based organization with a casual chat app feel helps the Lean community create a welcoming environment for newcomers.

Open-source projects and communities

• Inclusive discussion in the open-source Asciidoctor community

  If a topic starts in the wrong place or veers off course, Zulip’s moderation tools make it easy to fix. Community moderators can keep the dialogue organized by reclassifying topics and posts without disrupting the ongoing conversation.

• Faster decision-making in the Rust language community

  In contrast to other chat tools, Zulip makes it pleasant to have multiple conversations at once. Zulip’s thread-based organization creates a clear record of past discussions, documenting the decision-making process.

• Platform for a worldwide community since 2013 at Recurse Center

  The Recurse Center was an early adopter of Zulip. They began to use the product in January 2013, when it was still in private beta. Even then, Zulip’s thoughtful design made it stand out.

• Professional community support at Rush Stack

  To make the transition, Rush Stack imported the project’s full chat history from Gitter into Zulip, making it an easily searchable resource. Enabling Zulip’s feature for logging in with GitHub meant that users didn’t have to make new accounts.

• Collaboration drives innovation at Mixxx

  Zulip has proven perfectly suited to support Mixxx’s worldwide community: It has made collaboration easier, and community engagement has grown as a result. Zulip’s threading model works well for occasional participants in the community, and world-public channels make it possible to view discussions without even creating an account.