Zulip
Messaging & Chat Free tier (card may be required)
AuthenticationFree tier (card may be required)
Rate limitCloud free plan: 10,000 searchable messages, 5 GB storage; self-hosting is unlimited
Documentation: zulip.com ยท Checked Sep 13, 2026
About
Zulip is team chat (like Slack or Discord for work) built around topics, so conversations stay organized instead of scrolling away. Their hosted Cloud plan is free with 10,000 searchable messages and 5 GB of storage. Genuinely usable for small teams. And the whole thing is open source, so you can self-host it for free with no limits.
Details
Free tier, but a card may be required to sign up.
Auth: Free tier (card may be required)
Rate limit: Cloud free plan: 10,000 searchable messages, 5 GB storage; self-hosting is unlimited
Verified: 2026-09-13
Best for: business developer personal
Setup
- Create a free Zulip Cloud organization
- Invite your team and set up streams (channels) and topics
- Create a bot user to get an API key
- Send messages with the API or one of 30+ integrations
- Self-host on your own server if you outgrow the cloud limits
Example
Send a message: POST https://your-org.zulipchat.com/api/v1/messages with your bot's email and API keyUse cases
- Run a small team's daily chat without paying per seat
- Post automated alerts from your servers into a team channel
- Host your own private chat server with the open-source version