mirror of https://github.com/zulip/zulip.git
72 lines
3.3 KiB
Markdown
72 lines
3.3 KiB
Markdown
|
||
|
||
<center id="cartoon-caption">Explanation of Zulip by [Julia Evans](https://twitter.com/b0rk)</center>
|
||
|
||
Zulip is not just a “better Slack”, in the same way that iPods were not just
|
||
“better CD players”. Zulip’s topic-based threading changes what is possible
|
||
in chat. If you haven’t seen Zulip in action, log on to our developers’
|
||
server at [chat.zulip.org](https://chat.zulip.org),
|
||
or check out our short screencast (coming soon) on topics and threading.
|
||
|
||
## Zulip vs. Slack
|
||
|
||
Zulip’s threading model allows for long-running conversations to co-exist
|
||
with real time chat. This allows senior staff, remote team members,
|
||
part-time contractors, internal clients, and others who aren’t going to be
|
||
on your chat full-time to participate effectively.
|
||
|
||
In Slack (or Hipchat, Mattermost, or many others), if Bob starts a
|
||
conversation in a busy channel at 10am, and Ada swings by sometime in
|
||
the evening, there is no way for Ada to effectively participate in
|
||
that conversation. If Ada is a manager who spends most of her days in
|
||
meetings, or is a remote engineer living 8 time zones away, she won’t
|
||
be able to participate in most conversations at all.
|
||
|
||
This means that
|
||
in an organization that has adopted Slack, the vast majority of Ada’s
|
||
conversations will still be over email, during meetings, or over Slack
|
||
direct messages.
|
||
|
||
By contrast, Zulip’s lightweight threading model allows busy team
|
||
members and remote workers to fully participate, even if they are
|
||
reading messages hours after they are sent (or the next day!).
|
||
|
||
This
|
||
enables conversation that would otherwise happen over meetings or
|
||
email to happen in Zulip itself. It also enables easy participation
|
||
and information spread to those that have the least time to attend
|
||
meetings which have only a nugget of information that is relevant to
|
||
them.
|
||
|
||
## Zulip vs. Email
|
||
|
||
Email is clunky for real-time communication. A thread with even 50
|
||
messages feels cluttered and slow, whereas real-time chat
|
||
conversations (on any platform) regularly exceed that. Typing
|
||
notifications, emoji reactions, keyboard shortcuts, and blazingly fast
|
||
clients make Zulip a daily pleasure.
|
||
|
||
Usability matters; in an
|
||
organization that relies on email for communication, things that could
|
||
have been resolved over chat end up being pushed to meetings instead.
|
||
|
||
## Zulip changes the way you operate
|
||
|
||
The Zulip project has over 30 core team members, working from over 10
|
||
different time zones and 25 different locations. Outside of one-on-one
|
||
conversations, Zulip doesn’t have a single phone or video-based
|
||
meeting. Zulip also has zero internal mailing lists, and zero internal email
|
||
discussions. By contrast, even Slack doesn’t rely on Slack for remote
|
||
work; their
|
||
[careers page](https://slack.com/careers/location/all-locations/dept/all-departments)
|
||
doesn’t list a single position where you could work from anywhere.
|
||
|
||
Threaded conversations mean that all stakeholders can see and respond to
|
||
every message, just like in meetings and email.
|
||
|
||
But unlike meetings, Zulip
|
||
conversations don’t require coordinating busy schedules, or hour long
|
||
commitments from folks that just need a 5 minute update. And unlike email, a
|
||
lively discussion of 300 Zulip messages is just as easy to digest and
|
||
respond to as an in-person conversation.
|