head to head · open source
Zulip vs univer
Zulip has 25,921 GitHub stars, 10,247 forks, 2,008 open issues and last shipped yesterday. univer has 14,395 stars, 1,303 forks, 151 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Zulip leads on adoption by 80% (25,921 vs 14,395 stars). Zulip is written in Python under Apache-2.0; univer is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. Zulip has attracted 40% as many forks as stars, univer 9%. univer 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 | univer | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 26K | ★ 14K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 1.3K |
| 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 univer if
- You want the univer feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and univer fits your workflow better
About Zulip
Zulip is an open source organized team chat application built on topic based threading, aimed at distributed teams that need live and asynchronous conversation in one place, and it is positioned as an open alternative to Slack.
read the full Zulip overview →
About univer
Univer is an open source, full stack office SDK for building spreadsheet, document and presentation interfaces inside your own product. Rather than shipping an end user office suite, it gives developers the primitives — a Canvas based renderer, a formula engine, a plugin architecture and a single Facade API — to embed spreadsheet and document editing into a web application or run the same logic headlessly on Node.js.
read the full univer overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zulip or univer more popular?
Zulip has 25,921 GitHub stars and univer has 14,395. Zulip has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zulip and univer free?
Both are open source. Zulip is licensed under Apache-2.0 and univer under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Zulip and univer?
Zulip is written in Python and univer in TypeScript. 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 univer?
Choose Zulip if you want the larger community (25,921 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose univer if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.