## Startup inspired by MIT's messaging system

Zulip was originally created by Zulip, Inc., a small startup in Cambridge,
Massachusetts.  Zulip, Inc. was founded in August 2012 by the
[MIT](https://www.mit.edu/) alumni team that previously created the
[Ksplice](https://www.ksplice.com) software for live-patching a running Linux
kernel.  Zulip was inspired by the [BarnOwl](https://barnowl.mit.edu/) client
for the [Zephyr](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zephyr_(protocol)) instant
messaging protocol, and the incredible community that Zephyr supported at MIT.

## Early acquisition by Dropbox

Zulip, Inc. was acquired by [Dropbox](https://www.dropbox.com/) in
early 2014, while the product was still in private beta, which put
Zulip development on hold. However, because they loved Zulip's
topic-based threading experience, Zulip's early customers [continued
using Zulip all through that time](/case-studies/recurse-center/).

> “We strongly prefer Zulip to other options for several reasons – its message
> threading being a key one.”
>
> — [Nick Bergson-Shilcock](https://github.com/nicholasbs), Recurse Center
> [co-founder and CEO](https://www.recurse.com/team), September 2015

## Zulip released as open source!

In 2015, a year and a half after the acquisition, Dropbox generously decided to
[release Zulip as open-source software](https://blogs.dropbox.com/tech/2015/09/open-sourcing-zulip-a-dropbox-hack-week-project/).

A group of Zulip's developers [and early
users](https://www.recurse.com/blog/90-zulip-supporting-oss-at-the-recurse-center)
spent Dropbox's Hack Week preparing Zulip's code base for release. The
entire product, including the server, Android and iOS mobile apps, and
desktop apps for Mac, Linux and Windows, was released [under the Apache
2 license](https://github.com/zulip/zulip/blob/main/LICENSE) with
complete version control history.

The Zulip community is incredibly grateful to both Dropbox and those
enthusiastic early users for making the Zulip open source project possible.
Dropbox has no ongoing relationship with the Zulip project.

## Zulip's second founding

At first, the [Zulip open-source project](https://github.com/zulip/zulip#readme)
was maintained by the project's founder and leader [Tim
Abbott](/team/#the-core-team) on nights and weekends. In the months following
the open-source release, the project quickly gained contributors and users.

It soon became clear that guiding the contributor community in developing a
world-class team chat product would require leadership from a dedicated team.
Thus, in April 2016, Tim Abbott founded a [mission-driven](/values/) company,
Kandra Labs, to steward and financially sustain Zulip’s development.
Incorporating as a business has helped Zulip attract top talent, and has made
Zulip eligible for [large innovation grants](https://seedfund.nsf.gov/) from the
US National Science Foundation, which Kandra Labs was awarded in 2017 and 2018.

## Early days as an open-source company

In its early days, the Zulip community was focused on three main goals:

- Turning an innovative product (that had been in private beta when its
  development was put on hold) into a **polished application**, complete with
  enterprise-ready features like [single sign-on
  options](/help/configure-authentication-methods) and [hundreds of
  integrations](/integrations/).

- Making Zulip more **widely available**. In mid-2017, Kandra Labs
  launched two products: a hosted [Zulip Cloud](/plans/) service, and
  an enterprise support offering for [self-hosted](/self-hosting/)
  deployments. Zulip’s original customers were migrated from Dropbox’s
  servers to the new Zulip Cloud offering, fully preserving their chat
  history. Despite the acquisition by Dropbox, Zulip's customers have
  thus [enjoyed uninterrupted
  service](https://blog.zulip.com/2021/12/17/why-zulip-will-stand-the-test-of-time/)
  since 2013.

- **Building a vibrant community around the project**, with effort and
  care dedicated to making it [easy to get
  started](https://zulip.readthedocs.io/en/latest/overview/contributing.html)
  contributing to Zulip. The Zulip development community gathered at
  PyCon sprints [in
  2016](https://blog.zulip.org/2016/10/13/static-types-in-python-oh-mypy/),
  and led the largest PyCon sprint ever [in
  2017](https://us.pycon.org/2017/community/sprints/), with over 75
  developers contributing to Zulip over course of the 4-day event. By
  late 2016, [more than 150
  people](https://github.com/zulip/zulip/graphs/contributors) from all
  over the world had contributed almost 1000 pull requests to the
  software, and the Zulip project was moving faster than when the
  original startup employed 11 full-time engineers. Zulip also began
  mentoring [Google Summer of
  Code](https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/) contributors
  in 2016, and continues to [mentor 15-20 outreach program
  participants](https://zulip.readthedocs.io/en/latest/outreach/overview.html)
  every year.

We are proud to have achieved those early goals for the
project.

## Zulip continues to thrive

These days, we regularly hear from users that they prefer Zulip's user
experience to that of team chat products produced by some of the
world's largest companies. More than 1000 people have contributed a
total of over 60,000 commits to the Zulip project, which has more than
16 thousand stars on GitHub.

In 2020, Zulip experienced an extraordinary increase in usage as a result of
the Covid-19 pandemic changing how people work. During this extremely difficult
time, we found joy in hearing from users about how Zulip has helped them make
[remote work](/for/business/), [research collaborations](/for/research/),
[teaching](/for/education/), and [events and conferences](/for/events/)
successful.

Starting August 2022, [Slack’s free plan change caused an
exodus](https://blog.zulip.com/2022/08/26/why-slacks-free-plan-change-is-causing-an-exodus/)
of open-source projects, researchers, and a wide variety of other
negatively impacted communities to Zulip and other chat
platforms. [Data imports](/help/import-from-slack) from Slack into
Zulip Cloud increased an incredible 40x in the month after Slack’s
[announcement](https://slack.com/blog/news/pricing-and-plan-updates).

In 2023, Zulip earned first place in [GetApp’s Collaboration Software Category
Leaders
report](https://www.getapp.com/collaboration-software/web-collaboration/category-leaders/).
With over 100 reviews on Capterra, Zulip's 4.8 star rating beat out reviews for
other team chat apps, earning Capterra's [Best Value
badge](https://www.capterra.com/p/197945/Zulip/).

## Press highlights

- September 2024: An in-depth interview with Zulip’s head of product [on The
  Changelog podcast](https://changelog.com/podcast/607): *“We talk about Zulip’s
  origins, how it’s open source, the way it’s led, no VC funding, what makes it
  different/better, how you can self-host it or use their cloud, moving to
  Zulip, contributing and being a part of the community… all the things.”*

- June 2024: An in-depth [review of
  Zulip](https://www.hostingadvice.com/blog/emerging-open-source-team-chat-app-set-to-rival-slack/)
  is published on [HostingAdvice.com](https://www.hostingadvice.com/).

> "An excellent solution for teams collaborating across different time zones."
>
> — [Zulip
> review](https://www.hostingadvice.com/blog/emerging-open-source-team-chat-app-set-to-rival-slack/)
> on *HostingAdvice.com*

- March 2023: A long-form [video
  interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbj59mVwErg) with Zulip’s founder
  and project leader about Zulip’s history, our goals for the product and how we
  approach its design, Zulip’s engineering philosophy, and more produced by
  [FUTO](https://futo.org/).

- March 2022:
  [Deep-dive](https://opensource.com/article/22/3/open-source-chat-zulip) into
  how one open-source community uses Zulip published on
  [opensource.com](https://opensource.com/).

- June 2021: Zulip is covered in a [VentureBeat
  article](https://venturebeat.com/2021/06/18/cutting-slack-when-open-source-and-team-chat-tools-collide/)
  about open-source Slack alternatives.

- February 2021: TechRadar publishes a [Zulip overview and installation
  walkthrough](https://www.techradar.com/how-to/set-up-your-own-slack-like-chat-system-on-linux).

- July 2021: An in-depth [review of
  Zulip](https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/28/zulip_open_source_chat_collaboration_software/)
  is published in *[The Register](https://www.theregister.com)*.

> “In fact now it seems strange to me to just fire off messages in Slack with no
> subject – that's chaos, madness. The genius of subject lines is that you can
> quickly and easily catch up on the messages you missed in your off-hours...
> This feature alone saves me hours a week.”
>
> — [Zulip
> review](https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/28/zulip_open_source_chat_collaboration_software/)
> in *The Register*

- [July
  2021](https://www.quantamagazine.org/lean-computer-program-confirms-peter-scholze-proof-20210728/)
  and [October
  2020](https://www.quantamagazine.org/building-the-mathematical-library-of-the-future-20201001/):
  Zulip earns mentions in Quanta Magazine articles about the [formalization of
  mathematics](/case-studies/lean/).

> “Every day, dozens of like-minded mathematicians gather on an online forum
> called Zulip to build what they believe is the future of their field.”
>
> — *Quanta Magazine*, [“Building the Mathematical Library of the
> Future“](https://www.quantamagazine.org/building-the-mathematical-library-of-the-future-20201001/)

- November 2020: An interview with Tim Abbott is [featured in Linux
  Format](https://linuxformat.com/archives?issue=269).

- September 2020: [TFiR](https://www.tfir.io/) publishes an [in-depth video
  interview](https://www.tfir.io/zulip-is-slack-for-busy-project-managers/) with
  Zulip founder and lead developer Tim Abbott.

- July 2017: Podcast [interview with Tim
  Abbott](https://www.pythonpodcast.com/zulip-chat-with-tim-abbott-episode-118/)
  is featured on the Python podcast
  [Podcast.__init__](https://www.pythonpodcast.com/about/).

## Major server releases and product announcements

- March 2025: [Zulip Server 10.0
  released](https://blog.zulip.com/2025/03/20/zulip-10-0-released/), with over
  5200 new commits. 121 people contributed commits to Zulip since the 9.0
  release.

- March 2025: Zulip
  [announces](https://blog.zulip.com/2025/03/20/flexible-permissions-management/)
  a new flexible system for permissions management. Zulip users can now grant
  permissions across the app to any combination of roles, groups, and individual
  users.

- July 2024: [Zulip Server 9.0
  released](https://blog.zulip.com/2024/07/25/zulip-9-0-released/), with over
  5300 new commits. 124 people contributed commits to Zulip since the 8.0
  release.

- December 2023: [Zulip Server 8.0
  released](https://blog.zulip.com/2023/12/15/zulip-8-0-released/), with over
  4700 new commits. 116 people contributed commits to Zulip since the 7.0
  release. Zulip announces new [plans](/plans#self-hosted) for self-hosted
  customers.

- May 2023: [Zulip Server 7.0
  released](https://blog.zulip.com/2023/05/31/zulip-7-0-released/), with over
  3800 new commits. 107 people contributed commits to Zulip since the 6.0
  release.

- November 2022: [Zulip Server 6.0
  released](https://blog.zulip.com/2022/11/17/zulip-6-0-released/), with over
  3400 new commits. 118 people contributed commits to Zulip since the 5.0
  release.

- May 2022: Zulip
  [announces](https://blog.zulip.com/2022/05/05/public-access-option/) the
  general availability of a [public access option](/help/public-access-option).
  Open-source projects and other open communities can now offer one-click access
  (no login required!) to part or all of their Zulip chat.

- March 2022: [Zulip Server 5.0
  released](https://blog.zulip.com/2022/03/29/zulip-5-0-released/), with over
  7000 new commits. 157 people contributed commits to Zulip since the 4.0
  release.

- July 2021: In response to [interest from educators](/case-studies/ucsd/),
  Zulip
  [launches](https://blog.zulip.com/2021/07/26/zulip-for-education-launch/) a
  dedicated [Zulip for Education](/for/education/) offering.

> “Zulip has the best user experience of all the chat apps I’ve tried. With the
> discussion organized by topic within each channel, Zulip is the only app that
> makes hundreds of conversations manageable.”
>
> — [Tobias Lasser](https://ciip.in.tum.de/people/lasser.html), lecturer at the
> Technical University of Munich Department of Informatics [[customer
> story](/case-studies/tum/)]

- May 2021: [Zulip Server 4.0
  released](https://blog.zulip.com/2021/05/13/zulip-4-0-released/), with over 4300
  new commits by 137 contributors.

> “This has been an unusually long release cycle, because I took a few months off
> work on Zulip to welcome my new daughter Zoe. Coming back to work was a great
> stress-test of Zulip’s asynchronous model: I received over 20,000 messages in
> chat.zulip.org during my paternity leave. I really enjoyed reading everything
> and replying to the hundreds of topics where I had something to contribute or
> someone to thank. Systematically reading months of history would have been
> impossible with any other tool!”

> —Tim Abbott, Zulip founder and lead developer, [Zulip 4.0 release blog
> post](https://blog.zulip.com/2021/05/13/zulip-4-0-released/)

- July 2020: [Zulip Server 3.0
  released](https://blog.zulip.com/2020/07/16/zulip-3-0-released/), with 4100
  new commits by 110 contributors.

- March 2019: [Zulip Server 2.1
  released](https://blog.zulip.com/2019/12/13/zulip-2-1-released/), with 3190
  new commits by 123 contributors.

- March 2019: [Zulip Server 2.0
  released](https://blog.zulip.com/2019/03/01/zulip-2-0-released/), with 1900
  new commits by 87 contributors.

- November 2018: [Zulip Server 1.9
  released](https://blog.zulip.com/2018/11/07/zulip-1-9-released/), with 3300
  new commits by 81 contributors.

- April 2018: [Zulip Server 1.8
  released](https://blog.zulip.com/2018/04/18/zulip-1-8-released/), with over
  3500 new commits by 131 contributors.

- October 2017: [Zulip Server 1.7
  released](https://blog.zulip.com/2017/10/25/zulip-server-1-7-released/), with 3675
  new commits by about 100 contributors.

- June 2017: [Zulip Server 1.6
  released](https://blog.zulip.com/2017/06/06/zulip-server-1-6-released/), with
  over 3100 new commits by more than 150 contributors.

## Support

- Zulip is on [GitHub Sponsors](https://github.com/sponsors/zulip),
  [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/zulip), and [Open
  Collective](https://opencollective.com/zulip). Our [blog
  post](https://blog.zulip.com/2021/04/28/why-zulip-is-on-github-sponsors/)
  explains Zulip’s values-driven approach and why we ask for support.

- Kandra Labs is supported by nearly $1M in <a
  href="https://seedfund.nsf.gov/">SBIR grants</a> from the US National Science
  Foundation.

- Zulip has benefited enormously from the work of over 100 contributors
  supported by [Google Summer of Code](https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/).
