Discourse vs Zulip
Comparing two open source alternatives to Discord and Slack . Use the comparison below to decide which one fits your needs.
Zulip
Apache-2.0Open-source team chat with a unique topic-based threading model that makes it easy to follow multiple conversations.
Side-by-side comparison
 Discourse | Zulip | |
|---|---|---|
| License | GPL-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Self-hostable | Yes | Yes |
| GitHub Stars | 46,989 | 25,156 |
| Forks | 8,907 | 9,816 |
| Open Issues | 141 | 2,056 |
| Last Commit | May 8, 2026 | May 7, 2026 |
| First Released | Jan 12, 2013 | Sep 25, 2015 |
| Categories | ||
| Tags |
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