Research on open source team communication tools/Tool comparison Zulip vs. Mattermost *(2016-2017)

Wikimedia is considering using either Zulip or Mattermost for its outreach programs (e.g. GCI) to talk with students. Zulip and Mattermost are both open-sourced team communication and collaboration tools. This wiki page is created to compare Zulip vs. Mattermost as part of the following task: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T154001

Zulip

Zulip is an open-source team communication system acquired by Dropbox in 2014 and released as an open-source in 2015. It is created primarily using python and javascript (web frontend). Zulip's biggest strength is its threaded group conversations which allow people to talk about multiple topics at once without getting lost or overwhelmed.

The user interface of Zulip

Amount of contributors in repositories

• zulip/zulip: 206
• zulip/zulip-android: 19
• zulip/zulip-mobile: 9
• zulip/zulip-electron (desktop client): 8

Requirements:

• Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty and Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial (for others contact zulip mailing list for help)
• 4GB of RAM or more
• PostgreSQL 9.1+
• SSL certificate and email credentials

Pros:

• Open-Source
• Threaded Group Conversations
• Desktop apps
• One-on-one and group private conversations
• Inline image, video, and tweet previews
• More than 40 integrations
• Desktop and Email notifications
• Android and iOS apps
• English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Japanese, Korean, Czech, Malayalam, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian & Chinese translations

Cons:

• The webapp UI design looks like something from the 2000's
• Lots of bugs still present
• Terrible Android and iOS apps

Mattermost

Mattermost is a team communication system released on June 2015 with an "Enterprise" version and an open-source "Team" version. It is created primarily on Golang and React. Mattermost considers itself as an open-source version of Slack. It also has an easy one line Docker install.

The user interface of Mattermost

Amount of contributors in repositories

• mattermost/platform: 152
• mattermost/android: 19
• mattermost/mattermost-mobile: 8
• mattermost/desktop: 22

Requirements:

• Ubuntu 14.04, Debian Jessie, CentOS 6.6+, CentOS 7.1+, RedHat Enterprise Linux 6.6+, RedHat Enterprise Linux 7.1+, Oracle Linux 6.6+, Oracle Linux 7.1+
• MySQL 5.6+
• PostgreSQL 9.4+
• 250-500 users - 2 vCPUs/cores, 4 GB RAM, and 45-90 GB storage
• 500-1,000 users - 4 vCPUs/cores, 8 GB RAM, and 90-180 GB storage
• 1,000-2,000 users - 4-8 vCPUs/cores, 16-32 GB RAM, and 180-360 GB storage

Pros:

• Self-hosted one-on-one and group messaging, file sharing and search
• Native apps for iOS, Android, 2, Mac, Linux
• Unlimited search history & integrations
• English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Dutch & Portuguese translation
• Easy to use Slack like user interface

Cons:

• Lack of developer community
• Threaded conversation doesn't show that well

Conclusion

In the making of this comparison, I have tried both of them for quite some time, and I will have to say that even though Mattermost has a much better user interface, Zulip's threaded group discussion is a really great tool to keep things organized. This is especially helpful in streams with a lot of people. Not to mention that Wikimedia once have had a VM running for Mattermost but was terminated because of lack of interest as seen here: Nova Resource