The Lounge vs Zulip
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted apps from related categories
— licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one
replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Compare The Lounge with
choose an app… Plane Rocket.Chat Mattermost Chatwoot Focalboard Super Productivity Wekan SimpleX Chat Etherpad OpenProject Habitica Self-Hosted Tinode Element Web Planka Leantime Centrifugo Screego Typebot git-bug Let's Chat Kanboard Berty Mumble Kaneo Matterbridge ejabberd Papercups Taskwarrior Zammad WorkAdventure Dendrite Soketi Remark42 Isso FreeSWITCH qTox MiroTalk Synapse Ferdium FreeScout Telegram Bot API Server Rustpad Cinny Asterisk WeeChat Ergo Converse.js irssi Openfire Quicksy Bridge Kamailio Cusdis Tox Stoat Dino Nheko AnyCable Chitchatter Live Helper Chat Conduit Spacebar Nextcloud Talk ZNC Indico Movim RetroShare SIPCAPTURE Homer Peer-calls mautrix-telegram Routr GlobaLeaks openSIPS mautrix Databag Galène InspIRCd Candy Toxic Hyphanet Convos IRC FusionPBX soju KiwiIRC Glowing Bear Bonfire Pretalx Delta Chat Notifo SimpleX Briar Quassel IRC OTS matrix-commander Mumble Web Comentario BitlBee ngIRCd Miaou Session Nextcloud Talk Signaling Server UnrealIRCd MiroTalk C2C matrix-appservice-irc Linphone Chatmail Relay Hookshot Atheme IRC Services Maunium Sticker Picker Spectrum 2 Shhh Gamja Jami Server Bridge Mollysocket Anope PushBits Comm Heisenbridge Slixmpp Ferdium Server Solanum Wesh Network Draupnir baibot matrix-media-repo Charybdis IRCd Zusam Cactus Comments ircd-hybrid Scuttlebutt Room Robust IRC Flexisip SAMA Biboumi Hebbot ircu2 Libervia Jami YunoHost Mail Relay 3CX ARN-Messager Freepbx GNUnet Groupboard MailBag Mailman3 Mailing List Manager Mlmmj Web Peachpub PrivMX WebMail SIP3 TrueConf Wazo Yeti-Switch
Compare Zulip with
choose an app… Rocket.Chat Mattermost Tinode Element Web Let's Chat BigBlueButton Matterbridge ejabberd Dendrite Synapse Cinny WeeChat Ergo Converse.js Revolt irssi Openfire Dino Nheko La Suite - Meet Conduit Nextcloud Talk Movim Twake Workplace Zulip Terminal Spark IM matterircd Virola Messenger
Feature The Lounge Zulip Category Chat & Communication Team Chat License MIT Apache-2.0 Language TypeScript Python Setup difficulty Easy Medium Min. RAM 256 MB 2,048 MB Deployment docker, binary, source docker, bare-metal GitHub stars ★ 6,309 ★ 25,619 First released 2014 2015 Replaces IRCCloud, Slack Slack, Microsoft Teams
Why pick each one
Choose The Lounge if… Great IRC experience in the browser Multi-user support The Lounge details Choose Zulip if… Excellent conversation organization Strong async workflow Fully open source Zulip details
Frequently asked questions Is The Lounge or Zulip better? Neither is universally better. Zulip has the larger community, while The Lounge is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are The Lounge and Zulip free and open-source? Yes. The Lounge is licensed under MIT and Zulip under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run The Lounge and Zulip with Docker? The Lounge: yes. Zulip: yes.