On Wednesday, 21 January 2026 CSCCE hosted a Tools Trial to support our community in learning about the open-source community platform Zulip. The Trial, like the many we’ve run before, offered basic information about the platform, and then explored different use cases relevant to community managers – including migrating a community from Slack into Zulip.
In this blog post you’ll find a brief summary of the call, as well as a curated list of resources relevant to anyone interested in setting up a Zulip instance. And you can watch the recordings of our four expert presenters: Philip Durbin (Dataverse), Maria Doyle (Bioconductor), Samantha Wittke (CSC – IT Center for Science, Finland), and Danny Garside (Digital Research Academy).
About CSCCE Tools Trials
CSCCE Tools Trials began in the summer of 2020 as a way of testing out new online tools. It was a response to the rapid pivot to online convening necessitated by the COVID-19 pivot. We’ve since hosted a number of Trials, and you can find recap blog posts about each of them here.
Tools Trials formats vary slightly depending on the tool or use case being tested, and whether or not we have expert presenters available to demo the tool. In some cases, we feature short presentations, other times it’s more of an opportunity to explore a sandbox, and there is always plenty of time for moderated Q&A and discussion.
The Zulip Tools Trial featured four presentations (you can watch the recordings below!), with presenters answering questions and discussion features. We also set up a sandbox Zulip workspace for participants to log in and try things out for themselves after the call. We will maintain the sandbox site for a couple of weeks, so if you’re interested in taking a look and would like an invitation, please email info@cscce.org.
About Zulip
Zulip is an open-source community platform, similar to Slack, that supports threaded discussions that can be organized by topic and channel. You can create public channels for the whole community (or team), private channels for sub-groups, and send and receive direct messages.
As an open-source product, you can choose to self-host your Zulip community or sign up through Zulip Cloud for hosted options (including free plans for nonprofits and smaller communities). If your community is already hosted in another platform (e.g., Slack, Mattermost, or Microsoft Teams), Zulip has clear instructions for migration.
Intro to Zulip
Philip Durbin kicked things off with an introduction to Zulip. Phil is a developer for the open-source Dataverse project, and has been using Zulip for several years to host a community of Davaterse contributors and users. In his presentation, you’ll learn more about how to set up a Zulip instance (cloud or self-hosted), as well as how to start a conversation, organize threads into topics and channels, and the various public/private options available for communities in Zulip.
From Slack to Zulip: Lessons from a Community Migration
Maria Doyle, Community Manager for Bioconductor, then shared an overview of how she led the migration of a 4000-member community from Slack to Zulip. From communicating about the migration with the community, to implementing a multi-phase transition, Maria shares both the technical and human considerations that went into the move. You’ll also learn a bit more about how the two platforms (Slack and Zulip compare), and how the community responded to the move.
Two Communities, One Zulip: A Case Study
Like Phil, Samantha Wittke has been using Zulip for several years to convene the Code Refinery community, and enjoyed it so much that she also uses it for the Nordic RSE community. Her presentation, a case study of these two communities, is a treasure trove of tips and tricks for enhancing your community management skills in Zulip – perfect for new users of the platform!
Which chat app to choose? How do Slack, Zulip, Mattermost (and others…) compare?
In the last presentation of the session, Danny Garside (Digital Research Academy) shared their perspective after years of using a range of community and messaging platforms, including Zulip, for a variety of communities and goals. In a nutshell, Danny’s favorite platform these days is Zulip, but watch their presentation to learn more about how it compares to Slack, Mattermost, Matrix, Signal, and Discord, and which features to consider (including cost, privacy, and accessibility) if you’re trying to make a choice for yourself.
Zulip resources
During the call, our presenters shared a variety of helpful resources both in their talks and in the Zoom chat / our shared notes doc:
Zulip basics
- Zulip website
- 2-minute intro video – for anyone setting up a new community in Zulip
- Zulip help center – find useful articles on a range of topics
- Zulip development community (hosted in Zulip!)
Tips for using Zulip
- Reading strategies – how to engage in conversations in Zulip, including navigating topics and channels
- More about the Zulip “general chat” feature
- How to schedule a post in Zulip
- Zulip and GDPR compliance
Guides
- Zulip Tips & Tricks for Bioconductor – a cheat sheet for Bioconductor members on how to use the platform
- CodeRefinery’s Zulip guide
Further reading
- Read more about the history of Zulip
- Or listen to founder Tim Abbott on Podcast.__init__ E118
- This blog post describes Bioconductor’s move from Slack to Zulip
You can also view the following presenters slides:
Future Tools Trials in this series
We’re currently planning another Tools Trial for early 2026 that will focus on CiviCRM, an open source constituent relationship management platform that several of our community members use to engage with their members. But it doesn’t have to stop there! If there’s a tool you’d like to explore in a group setting with your fellow STEM community managers, or a use case you’d like to find a solution for, let us know. Or, if you’re using a platform that has changed your community management work for the better, we’d also love to hear from you. You can let us know your interest in presenting at (or attending!) the CiviCRM Tools Trial using this brief form.