mirror of https://github.com/zulip/zulip.git
70 lines
3.5 KiB
Markdown
70 lines
3.5 KiB
Markdown
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<center id="cartoon-caption">Explanation of Zulip by [Julia Evans](https://twitter.com/b0rk)</center>
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Zulip is not just a “better Slack”, in the same way that iPods were not just
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“better CD players”. Zulip’s topic-based threading changes what is possible
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in chat. If you haven’t seen Zulip in action, log on to our developers’
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server at <https://chat.zulip.org>, or check out our short screencast
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(coming soon) on topics and threading.
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## Zulip vs. Slack
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Zulip’s threading model allows for long-running conversations to co-exist
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with real time chat. This allows senior staff, remote team members,
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part-time contractors, internal clients, and others who aren’t going to be
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on your chat full-time to participate effectively.
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In Slack (or Hipchat, Mattermost, or many others), if Bob starts a
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conversation in a busy channel at 10am, and Ada swings by sometime in
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the evening, there is no way for Ada to effectively participate in
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that conversation. If Ada is a manager who spends most of her days in
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meetings, or is a remote engineer living 8 time zones away, she won't
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be able to participate in most conversations at all. This means that
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in an organization that has adopted Slack, the vast majority of Ada's
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conversations will still be over email, during meetings, or over Slack
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direct messages.
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By contrast, Zulip's lightweight threading model allows busy team
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members and remote workers to fully participate, even if they are
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reading messages hours after they are sent (or the next day!). This
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enables conversation that would otherwise happen over meetings or
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email to happen in Zulip itself. It also enables easy participation
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and information spread to those that have the least time to attend
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meetings which have only a nugget of information that is relevant to
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them.
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## Zulip vs. Email
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Email is clunky for real-time communication. A thread with even 50
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messages feels cluttered and slow, whereas real-time chat
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conversations (on any platform) regularly exceed that. Typing
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notifications, emoji reactions, keyboard shortcuts, and blazingly fast
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clients make Zulip a daily pleasure. Usability matters; in an
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organization that relies on email for communication, things that could
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have been resolved over chat end up being pushed to meetings instead.
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## Zulip changes the way you operate
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The Zulip project has over 30 core team members, working from over 10
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different time zones and 25 different locations. Outside of one-on-one
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conversations, Zulip doesn’t have a single phone or video-based
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meeting. Zulip also has 0 internal mailing lists, and 0 internal email
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discussions. By contrast, even Slack doesn't rely on Slack for remote
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work; their
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[careers page](https://slack.com/careers/location/all-locations/dept/all-departments)
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doesn't list a single position where you could work from anywhere.
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Threaded conversations mean that all stakeholders can see and respond to
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every message, just like in meetings and email. But unlike meetings, Zulip
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conversations don’t require coordinating busy schedules, or hour long
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commitments from folks that just need a 5 minute update. And unlike email, a
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lively discussion of 300 Zulip messages is just as easy to digest and
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respond to as an in-person conversation.
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## Read more about how we’ve made Zulip work for you
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* [Zulip for companies](/for/companies)
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* [Zulip for open source projects](/for/open-source)
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* [Zulip for working groups and part-time communities](/for/working-groups-and-communities)
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