Atlassian Confluence vs. Zulip

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Confluence
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
Confluence is a collaboration and content sharing platform used primarily by customers who are already using Atlassian's Jira project tracking product. The product appeals particularly to IT users.
$6.40
per month per user
Zulip
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
Zulip is a team chat app that is designed for both live and asynchronous conversations. Zulip topics create a separate space for each discussion, so different conversations will never get in each other's way. Teams of all sizes can use Zulip, and Zulip is 100% open-source enterprise-grade software, self-hosted or in the cloud.
$3.50
per month per user
Pricing
Atlassian ConfluenceZulip
Editions & Modules
Free
$0
Free for 10 Users
Standard
$6.40
per month per user
Premium
$12.30
per month per user
Data Center
220,000.00
40,001+ Users - Annually
Enterprise
Contact Sales
Zulip Cloud Free
$0
per month per user
Zulip Free
$0
per month per user
Zulip Basic
$3.50
per month per user
Zulip Cloud Standard
$8
per month per user
Zulip Business
$8
per month per user
Zulip Cloud Plus
$12
per month per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ConfluenceZulip
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPrices shown here reflect prices for deployments with 100 users or less. The prices decrease wien the user base surpasses 100.Discount available for annual pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Atlassian ConfluenceZulip
Features
Atlassian ConfluenceZulip
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Atlassian Confluence
7.0
157 Ratings
10% below category average
Zulip
10.0
1 Ratings
25% above category average
Task Management7.1125 Ratings00 Ratings
Gantt Charts7.912 Ratings00 Ratings
Scheduling7.221 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow Automation6.389 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Access6.7116 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Search6.8155 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Visual planning tools7.2126 Ratings00 Ratings
Communication
Comparison of Communication features of Product A and Product B
Atlassian Confluence
7.9
157 Ratings
1% below category average
Zulip
10.0
1 Ratings
22% above category average
Chat6.415 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Notifications8.2154 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Discussions7.7147 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Surveys7.015 Ratings00 Ratings
Internal knowledgebase9.0148 Ratings00 Ratings
Integrates with GoToMeeting6.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Integrates with Gmail and Google Hangouts9.37 Ratings00 Ratings
Integrates with Outlook9.610 Ratings00 Ratings
File Sharing & Management
Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Product A and Product B
Atlassian Confluence
7.7
156 Ratings
4% below category average
Zulip
10.0
1 Ratings
22% above category average
Versioning8.1135 Ratings00 Ratings
Video files6.8104 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Audio files6.896 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Document collaboration8.3151 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Access control8.6146 Ratings00 Ratings
Advanced security features8.3113 Ratings00 Ratings
Integrates with Google Drive5.947 Ratings00 Ratings
Device sync8.384 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Atlassian ConfluenceZulip
Small Businesses
Stackby
Stackby
Score 9.0 out of 10
Stackby
Stackby
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Troop Messenger
Troop Messenger
Score 9.8 out of 10
Troop Messenger
Troop Messenger
Score 9.8 out of 10
Enterprises
HCL Connections
HCL Connections
Score 9.0 out of 10
HCL Connections
HCL Connections
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Atlassian ConfluenceZulip
Likelihood to Recommend
8.2
(173 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(21 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(61 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
5.4
(25 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.8
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
6.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.0
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Atlassian ConfluenceZulip
Likelihood to Recommend
Atlassian
I would recommend Atlassian Confluence for companies that want to have internal documentation and minimum governance processes to ensure documentation is useful and doesn't have a lot of duplicated and non-updated content. I wouldn't recommend Atlassian Confluence for companies with a low budget since this product might be a little costly (especially with add-ons).
Read full review
Zulip
Zulip is great at what it does, and I enjoy using this product every day, but to me it serves as an alternative to the bigger names in instant communication. If they had more features and offered a simpler profile layout that was easier to look at, my rating would be higher.
Read full review
Pros
Atlassian
  • Cross product linking - If you use other Atlassian products then Atlassian Confluence is a no-brainer for your source of documentation, knowledge management etc. You can show previews of the linked asset natively E.g. showing a preview of a JIRA ticket in a Atlassian Confluence page.
  • Simple editing - Though the features available may not be super complex right now, this does come with the benefit of making it easy to edit and create documents. Some documentation editors can be overwhelming, Atlassian Confluence is simple and intuitive.
  • Native marketplace - If you want to install add-ons to your Atlassian Confluence space it's really easy. Admins can explore the Atlassian marketplace natively and install them to your instance in a few clicks. You can customise your Atlassian Confluence instance in many different ways using add-ons.
Read full review
Zulip
  • Letting you send direct messages
  • Letting you customize each message like adding bullet points and hyperlinks
  • Keeping each thread organized
Read full review
Cons
Atlassian
  • UI Design is very simplistic and basic could make use of more visually interesting colour choices, layout choices, etc.
  • Under the 'Content' menu, it defaults to having a landing page for all L1 and L2 category pages. Meaning as long as the broader content category has a sub-category, it still creates a separate landing page. In my team's case, this often creates blank pages, as we only fill out the page at the lowest sub-category (L3).
  • Hyperlinks are traditionally shown as blue, however, this results into very monotonously blue pages in cases where a lot of information is being linked.
Read full review
Zulip
  • It would be nice to see a person's title under their name when you click their profile
  • It would be nice to see a person's direct report when you click their profile
  • Including more personalized information in the quick view of a profile would be nice
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Atlassian
I am confident that Atlassian can come with additional and innovative macros and functions to add value to Confluence. In 6 months, Atlassian transformed a good collaborative tools into a more comprehensive system that can help manage projects and processes, as well as "talk" with other Atlassian products like Jira. We are in fact learning more about Jira to evaluate a possible fit to complement our tool box.
Read full review
Zulip
No answers on this topic
Usability
Atlassian
Great for organizing knowledge in a hierarchical format. Seamless for engineering and product teams managing software development. Helps in formatting pages effectively, reducing manual work. Tracks changes well and allows for easy rollbacks. Granular controls for who can view/edit pages. Search function is not great which needs improvement. Hire some google engineers
Read full review
Zulip
Again, I would like to see more personalized features pertaining to the quick view you get when you click on someone's profile within the software. I do like how it offers a desktop app as well as web browser support. I also like the customizing of notification sounds, there's a lot to choose from which is ideal.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Atlassian
I do not recall having outages or applications error so far, very reliable and available.
Read full review
Zulip
No answers on this topic
Performance
Atlassian
We never worked against the tide while using Confluence. Everything loads considerably fast, even media components like videos (hosted on the platform or embed external videos from Youtube, for example). We are not using heavy media components a lot, but in the rare occasion we happen to use one we have no problems whatsoever.
Read full review
Zulip
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Atlassian
This rating is specifically for Atlassian's self-help documentation on their website. Often times, it is not robust enough to cover a complex usage of one of their features. Frequently, you can find an answer on the web, but not from Atlassian. Instead, it is usually at a power user group elsewhere on the net.
Read full review
Zulip
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Atlassian
Overall, I am very satisfied with the initial implementation (and the subsequent upgrades and implementations made over the years).
This product has never rose to the level of being an major issue at an executive level. It has quietly and valiantly done it's job for our company!
Read full review
Zulip
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Atlassian
We chose Atlassian Confluence over SharePoint because it's much more user-friendly and intuitive. Atlassian Confluence makes collaboration and knowledge sharing easier with its simpler interface and better search. While SharePoint can be powerful, it often feels clunky and complex, making it harder for our team to actually use it.
Read full review
Zulip
I did not have a say in my company choosing Zulip as their main communication channel, but I can understand why they chose Zulip over any other program. It does house different discussion topics better than Teams does in my opinion, and you're able to easily add subtopics underneath them.
Read full review
Scalability
Atlassian
This tool is very adaptable. So much so we use it for three completely separate projects, in three very different ways.
Read full review
Zulip
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Atlassian
  • The AI feature which lets me find relevant documents while reading one document is really beneficial.
  • Centralising of knowledge systems is one of the key differentiators for large organisations.
  • As long as folks keep using Google Docs and Atlassian Confluence, there is going to be a challenge in building a continuum.
Read full review
Zulip
  • I don't feel suited to answer this as I have been with my organization for less than 2 months.
Read full review
ScreenShots