Choosing a team chat app | Zulip

As developers of an organized chat app for distributed teams, we’ve talked to hundreds of people about the teamwork apps they use. We’ve learned how organizations choose communication software, and the impact those choices have. These recommendations are based on their real-world experience using these apps day after day.
To make good use of your time, we focus on the handful of SaaS team chat apps you may want to seriously consider for your business:
We also explain why others are not the right choice for most businesses.
Teams is the most commonly used business chat app, in large part due to Microsoft’s anti-competitive strategy of bundling Teams with the Office 365 suite. It’s been built to check the standard procurement department checkboxes, not to provide an excellent user experience.
We’ve talked to hundreds of Teams users, and they almost universally have feelings somewhere on the “dislike it” to “hate it” spectrum. The exceptions are those who don’t rely on its team chat capabilities, and only use it for calls, scheduling, and occasional announcements and DMs.
Teams is for organizations that:
Reasons not to pick it:
Slack is the premier traditional team chat application, with a history of strong focus on the user experience. Widely popular chat features pioneered by Slack include emoji reactions (2015) and emoji user statuses (2017).
Acquired by Salesforce in 2020, Slack’s focus has recently shifted towards large enterprise customers, leaving small and mid-size businesses less happy with the product’s direction.
Reasons to avoid it:
Zulip’s key insight is that a chat app should be organized around clearly labeled conversations. Developed as an open-source project since 2015, Zulip is stewarded and financially supported by a values-driven company set up for long-term sustainable development.
Zulip serves startups, and small and mid-sized businesses, as well as communities with up to tens of thousands of members.
Best for organizations that:
Reasons not to pick it:
These apps may already be on your mind, but are not good options for most businesses.
Some small teams are happy using WhatsApp or other consumer chat apps, which are not designed for serious business use.
If your team will grow over time, it’s best to switch to an app that will grow with you early on, to start establishing communication patterns you’ll be happy with down the line.
Google Chat is included with Google Workplace, but seems to get little love from Google, and is not a serious team chat contender. Most people who’ve told us they use it for more than DMs are Google employees.
A popular chat app for gamers, Discord has never built the basic security and account management features expected for business use.
Reasons not to pick it:
Several open-source team chat applications have been around for years, and are solid options if you are looking to self-host your team chat solution (Matrix / Element, Mattermost, Rocket.Chat, and our own Zulip).
Currently, Zulip is the only one of these projects focused on business use, rather than on government and defense customers.
Lists of chat products found online often present dozens of options to consider. Unfortunately, digging in is often a waste of time because:
So unless a product is specifically built for your use case, and you have good reason to believe it’ll be around for the long term, we’d recommend sticking with one of the above options for a SaaS chat product.
If you are based in a high-income country and are choosing a chat app for staff who will use it all day, just pick the best option for your team.
Communication consumes a huge fraction of time in an organization. A recent survey found that knowledge workers spend half of their work day on communication, yet 72% of business leaders observe that their team struggles to communicate effectively. The report estimates that businesses lose an average of over $1,000/month for each employee due to ineffective communication.
Saving time for your employees and making them happier with their daily work is worth many times more than what you can “save” by choosing a cheaper or free app that’s less suitable.
If you need a chat app for use in a community (e.g., users of your product), or are based in a low-income country, check whether you qualify for a discount program. Small vendors like Zulip may be more flexible in working with you to align the pricing with how the product is used in your organization.
By Alya Abbott. Originally posted on the Zulip blog on November 4, 2024. Last updated September 26, 2026.