head to head · open source
Zulip vs faraday
Zulip has 26,158 GitHub stars, 10,521 forks, 2,008 open issues and last shipped yesterday. faraday has 6,839 stars, 1,089 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. Zulip leads on adoption by 282% (26,158 vs 6,839 stars). Zulip is written in Python under Apache-2.0; faraday is written in Python under GPL-3.0. Zulip has attracted 40% as many forks as stars, faraday 16%. Zulip was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (collaboration), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Zulip | faraday | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 26K | ★ 6.8K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 1.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Zulip if
- You weight community size — 26K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick faraday if
- You want the faraday feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and faraday fits your workflow better
About Zulip
Zulip overview Zulip is an open source organized team chat app with unique [topic based threading][why zulip] that combines the best of email and chat to make remote work productive and delightful. Fortune 500 companies, [leading open source projects][rust case study], and thousands of other organizations use Zulip every day. Zulip is the only [modern team chat app][features] that is designed for both live and asynchronous conversations. Zulip is built by a distributed community of developers from all around the world, with 99+ people who have each contributed 100+ commits. With over 1,500 contributors merging…
read the full Zulip overview →
About faraday
Open Source Vulnerability Manager Security has two difficult tasks: designing smart ways of getting new information, and keeping track of findings to improve remediation efforts. With Faraday, you may focus on discovering vulnerabilities while we help you with the rest. Just use it in your terminal and get your work organized on the run. Faraday was made to let you take advantage of the available tools in the community in a truly multiuser way. Faraday aggregates and normalizes the data you load, allowing exploring it into different visualizations that are useful to managers and analysts alike. To read about the…
read the full faraday overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zulip or faraday more popular?
Zulip has 26,158 GitHub stars and faraday has 6,839. Zulip has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zulip and faraday free?
Both are open source. Zulip is licensed under Apache-2.0 and faraday under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Zulip and faraday?
Zulip is written in Python and faraday in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Zulip or faraday?
Choose Zulip if you want the larger community (26,158 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose faraday if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.