Zulip.com Values

I’ve started working at a company that uses Zulip and it’s by far the best thought out UX I’ve ever worked with in a communications app. Sure there’s some polish needed but the general structure just lets me get to where I want, gives me an overview of everything going on, and generally makes me happy. I wish for more keyboard shortcuts maybe, and the mobile app needs the recent conversations view, but I’m sure they’ll get there.

As nice as zulips aspirations may be, every time i have to use it for a community i effectively stop interacting with them after a short while just because everything is janky, ugly and feels like a drag to interact with, just tried opening it on my phone to see if it improved but the header ui is just plain broken.

UI and user ergonomics continues to be Zulip's biggest blocker to wider adoption. I understand that to many people not having E2EE and truly independent self hosting (e.g. push notification issues) is a deal breaker, but for many organizations the current level of openness from its values is enough.

I really wish Zulip could find someone to re-design the interface around the channels/threads model to make it easier to use and more friendly to beginners. I am personally never bothered by the design and got used to its interface quite quickly, but I know many many people who got turned away by its design or uses it in a Slack/Discord way by posting everything into "general chat".

Absolutely love Zulip. I think they are the #1 open source project out there for many reasons. Here are a few that come to mind:

1. Open source and the commitment to keep it there. 2. The continued technical excellence of the product. 3. Excellent and up-to-date documentation 4. Open to the public development effort that allows public participation (chat.zulip.org) 5. Availability of help from front line engineers and owners as well as the community. 6. Modern and organized UI with many options to tailor it to use case and environment. 7. Excellent choice of tech stack which has evolved to keep up with new technology. 8. An excellent place for aspiring developers to learn not only coding but other skills such as communication and relationship values.

Everyone has values, until they get punched with a billion dollar check.

What companies value can change after they’ve grabbed their share. Just like how OpenAI changed their “constitution” about working with others.

I wish there was a way to hold companies accountable for stuff like that.

i love zulip for so many things, and in particular the topic-first paradigm.

and as long as it doesn't offer voice messages i keep going back to signal (or similar). for small groups i often find voice messages to be easiest (totally not for big groups, i agree!).

There are a lot of comments not liking zulip. I wonder if the like/dislike feeling is tied to the size of the user/company of the poster. My experience is the zulip works very well in my small 3 person fully remote business. Maybe the UI workflow of Zulip breaks down with larger numbers of users?

I've run the Carolina Code Conference since 2023 and we've setup Zulip as a chat system for conference attendees to network every year. It's a really cool platform and I wish it had more widespread adoption.

hopefully zulip can become a slack/discord alternative

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