Pumble vs Zulip

Slack

Microsoft Teams

WhatsApp

Slack is a single workspace that connects users with the people and tools they work with everyday, no matter where they are or what they do

Microsoft Teams is a chat-based workspace in Microsoft 365 which lets users collaborate on documents, make voice & video conference calls, view chat logs, and more. Teams has replaced Skype for Business as Microsoft's online meeting solution.

WhatsApp is a customer communications management software that helps businesses of all sizes create product catalogs and respond to customers’ messages or queries in real-time. The software provides end-to-end encryption to secure chats, voice messages, images, audio/video calls, and more.

A team communication software that lets your team collaborate via channels, follow all discussions in threads, or message teammates individually. With unlimited message history, every conversation or a shared file will always be accessible.

Mobile Access

Discussions/Forums

Collaboration Tools

Search/Filter

Third-Party Integrations

Audio Calls

Video Conferencing

Reviews for Pumble come from a wide variety of industries, including information technology and services (15% of reviewers), computer software (10%), and marketing and advertising (8%). The most frequent use case for Pumble cited by reviewers is team communication (90% of reviewers).

Users and use cases

Most users consider Pumble to offer strong value for money, as they appreciate the comprehensive free tier and affordable paid plans. Reviewers indicate its pricing is lower than competitors, though a few feel being free may raise performance doubts.

Value for money

Pumble is a team communication tool with key features that include real-time chat, mobile access, and more.

Proprietary

Pumble

iPad

iPhone

Web-based

Android

Windows

Basic

Pro 

Business

Enterprise

Operations Coordinator

The ability to schedule/remind about messages, custom notification settings, making user groups, threading,  and other customization options are all welcomed.

Virtual Assistant

The paid Pro plan is very competitively priced, adding features like guest accounts, file storage upgrades, and advanced administration tools for a low per-user cost.

Content Writer

We initially used WhatsApp to quickly share information and changes happening in the industry. But since we all use WhatsApp on our mobile phones, if we take out our mobile phones, we would waste a lot of time looking at other applications on our phones.

Head of IT

I miss the possibility of organizing channels, or at least ordering channels manually instead of having to rename them to have them show in a specific order. But I am just using the free version, so I know I cannot expect a bunch of features unless I pay.

Service Advisor

Pumble has brought the ability for field technicians to use the mobile app and show exactly what they are working on, forward pictures to the parts manager and service advisor for a clear idea of what is needed.

Book Writer

Its ability to integrate with various tools and platforms adds to its versatility, and the fact that it works seamlessly across web, desktop, and mobile devices ensures you can stay connected no matter where you are.

Procurement Manager

The Features helps our team to improvise and narrow down the workload and the communication is to the point and file sharing has become the icing on the cake and smooth as knife through the butter.

Translator and proofreader

I liked the fact that you can use both direct and group messaging, voice and video calls, screen sharing, all in one platform.

Sub-Genius

Quick communication with my collaborator, an intuitive interface, ability to chat live while creating, ease of rolling in new coworkers and collaborators. And the price!

Operations Manager

One of the issues we have with this platform in drivers are not able to share more than 10 photos at a time.  

Owner

Now you can pin messages in channels, which helps a lot. Plus, you can make calls and have meetings right in the app.

Pumble has given all of our team members the ability to feel like we are in the same room even though we are scattered in multiple buildings and some in virtual locations.

Account Manager

It is an agile and reliable program, which has different tools to achieve unity and teamwork, allowing the goals proposed by the company to be achieved.

Also one of the biggest problems is that slack has integrations between servers and this can become for some to much to handle as we cooperate with couple different teams that are using slack. If there would be possibility to connect with people from slack via pumble then I would change my recommendation for pumble to 9

However, Pumble does have a few drawbacks. While it covers the basics very well, it lacks some of the advanced features that more premium tools offer, such as extensive customization options and AI-driven insights.

We still hope for more advanced workflows and an option to add storage, but for day to day team chat it has been a reliable hub.

Being a newer and smaller player, there are fewer online resources, community forums, and troubleshooting guides compared to the giants.

Student

I don't appreciate getting emails about new users joining, as well as how there was no underline to turn them off in the messages from Pumble (it felt as if it was not clickable).

Team Member

Also, allow for replying to specific thread messages that were already sent in a thread.

AI Researcher

The only thing I missed at times were more integrations and stronger call features, but for messaging and collaboration, it’s been great.

Writer

I would just like to suggest if you can make it easier to see the direct threads so it would be hard to look for a message I have accidentally closed.

Security and comfort in communicating both private chats and group chats that I can't find on other platforms.

Otherwise, it will show the other party as muted for whoever is making the call and connecting for whoever is receiving it.

Education Program Manager

We don't get notify when someone post message inside the thread which leads to missing information.

Director

We were looking for a low-cost, robust chat and messaging system to use for our small business.

Fewer customization options for notifications and themes.

Outbound Marketing Lead

We were on the lookout for a instant messenger we could use for our team that included unlimited messages, as well as keeping our history.

To fix this, we sometimes have to uninstall and reinstall the Pumble Desktop application.

Customer support has always been s eager to help with any problems.    When we had the issue getting the log in codes support was on it and fixed our problem asap.

Supervisor

Meetings: Built-in calls are perfect for quick huddles and ad-hoc syncs

Straightforward notification system, helps avoid missing important updates.

the notification feature is usually msssing across the devices, and team

File previews can be slow with large files

Customer Service Representative

With features like threaded chats and file sharing, our work flows much smoother, making us more productive.

Graphic Designer

Communication with my team is much smoother, and it has helped me save time and better organize projects.

Calls are my biggest complaint as they just haven't worked properly even once despite multiple tickets to support.

Remote CSR

set up and  can be used with multiple browsers plus  has an app.

Occasional sync hiccups on mobile when switching networks

The ability to have multiple group chats.

Available on various platforms including web, desktop, and mobile, ensuring accessibility from anywhere.

The pictures can also be forwarded to the customer so they can have peace of mind knowing the failure has been found and replaced.

Creative Designer

It still needs improvements in stability and integrations, but for daily use it works very well.

Team Leader

It allows me to better communicate with everyone in a timely manner.

Remote Work: Stable across mixed networks; presence/status helps coordination.

It has helped us consolidate communication and cut back on email.

I have only used Pumble for a short period, but so far, the value of the free version that I am currently using far exceeds my initial expectations.

Researcher

I have used Pumble for three months now, to organise different projects within a small research group.

Owner Instructor

Also need to be able to move threads to more appropriate topic.

user experience designer

Having a chat for each project, so that make it too easy to have a separate conversation and assets for each project.

Tech writer

Not getting desktop or mobile notifications sometimes.

Chat

Threads

Users report that Pumble’s mobile access allows them to communicate and collaborate from anywhere, which they find essential for remote work and staying updated on the go. Reviewers indicate that Pumble’s mobile app is easy to use, always accessible, and convenient for checking messages when away from a computer. They say Pumble’s mobile access supports sharing photos and updates, and helps maintain productivity, though some wish for more capabilities compared to the desktop version. Of the 23 Pumble users who gave detailed accounts of their use of Mobile Access, 96% rated this feature as important or highly important.

File Sharing

Remote Team Management

Team Communication

Pricing

Channel Creation

Video Calls

Project Management

Large Enterprises

Small Business

Mid-size Business

Freelancers

Most users consider Pumble to offer strong value for money, highlighting its comprehensive free tier, which covers essential features and is especially appealing for small businesses and startups. They say the free version is robust and easy to use, and upgrading to paid plans is affordable, with sensible pricing and useful additional perks. Reviewers indicate that Pumble’s pricing is lower than competitors for similar functionality, making it a cost-effective alternative. Some users say the free trial requires no credit card, which encourages adoption. A few reviewers feel that being free may raise doubts about performance compared to established rivals.

CAKE.com

Enterprise open-source team chat, on-prem and in the cloud. Zulip is the only modern team chat app that is designed for both live and asynchronous conversations.


By industry, Zulip reviewers are most commonly professionals in research (28%). The most frequent use case for Zulip cited by reviewers is team communication (85% of reviewers).

The Zulip integration most frequently cited by reviewers is GitHub, an application development product rated 4.7 out of 5 for its integration with Zulip.

Integrations

Zulip is a team communication tool offering key features such as alerts/notifications, real-time chat, discussion forums, and mobile access, among others.

Open Source

Zulip

Linux

Chief of Staff

if you have a lot of channels & topics it can take a while to scroll through relevant ones or sometimes it's hard to find what I'm looking for, especially when it auto-collapses between DM and channels

Parts Manager

Teams crashed, wouldn't open properly and had to manually boot up the "old" version for it to work, it would randomly close in the middle of the work day or fail to show a notification so messages were missed.

Maintainer

There's a wealth of options for private and public channels, types of notifications and their behavior, and robust permissions.

Associate Professor of Pediatrics

The integration and automation options (bots/webhooks, GitHub/Zoom integrations) have streamlined our workflow.

Assistant professor

I have used it in small research groups around five people to coordinate joint writing and programming projects, in university courses I teach with a larger number of students, and in a large research community with thousands of members.

We also wanted something that would allow for voice and video calling and file sharing, and the ability to post your status so that each user can see at a glance who is available.

The learning curve can be a bit steep for new users unfamiliar with streams and topics, but this is rare in the real-world.  

Ability to create additional folders and topics under a channel.

Scientific Researcher

I find very useful to group all possible topics that currently I'm working on with my team and mark as resolved the ones which seem to be done.

Board Member

We use the tool for communications between members of the management board and it allows us to avoid the well known "Respond to all" trap with conventional e-mail

Professor

Over the years I have seen software communities (mainly scala earlier) move between various discussion forums, always trying to tradeoff. With Zulip everything is essentially as it should be, allowing asynchronous coordination of workflows involving code and mathematics in an intuitive and clean fashion. Except for the phase when Gitter was well maintained, Zulip is the first forum which just works.

Likewise, typing of equations using LaTex commands works pretty well!

The biggest negative feedback we receive using the product is that it is up to the user to manually update a custom status, and custom statuses cannot be saved as a preset.

Inspector

Thanks to the threads and discussions, we can also use Zulip for some fun small talk on some subjects like we did on WhatsApp (gif and emojis) without cluttering the serious work space.

Because Zulip is a less common platform, most folks haven't used it before and have a bit of a learning curve to get fluent in it.

President

Channels with topics, custom emojis, email alerts, mobile app, push notifications

Sometimes takes time to load on mac after inactivity.

Search actually works, and there are many notification settings.

It's a great alternative to Slack, but cheaper and more stable, and it scale with you if you are a startup

It’s well-structured for multi-directional conversations.

Zulip is our main communication channel - we barely use e-mail any longer.

Founder

It's such high-quality software for it to be an open-source tool. Despite some advanced features requiring payment, you can get most of the fundamentals along with some really cool tools on the completely free plan.

I would love for it to be easier to organise larger teams, e.g. with documents and/or a clearer and more concise overview of chats and channel data.

The short list of presets do not include a "lunch" status, for example. And, it's difficult to see who is on or off duty unless they remember to specifically post that.

Director of Learning and Administration

Zulip is safe and secure for all users - especially for minors who need to contact each other in a safe environment, without the worry of external influences Zulip has been invaluable.

It has a very convenient streams and threads model, allowing for focussed discussions over time.

It is an open (free) platform that allows users to store their content for unlimited time.

The final thing I am missing is a better setup for customizing the UI, and integrating addons.

Loved self-hosting it on my own server in Azure, but after we moved to zulip.com we are always running with the latest release which is fantastic

We are a company of 30 and have around 70 users including guests.

Super easy to move messages from one channel/place to another, so if you're re-organizing you both don't lose things and also can better consolidate knowledge that accidentally got spread around in different areas.

Loads of UI config options, has a native mobile app that pairs with it.

During Covid we were suddenly forced into a situation where teens who had been seeing each other on a regular basis were isolated and we needed a safe reliable way for them to communicate.

Developer

It is a stable chat with all the features I currently expect. And I prefer Zulip over other systems because of its nicely working topic-based chat.

Also the zulip icon on the Android launcher screen sometimes fails to show an remindera new message has arrived.

People familiar with Slack do not have problem with switching to Zulip.

I'd like to have a place with folders and enough space to save files on Zulip instead of using a cloud.

University Professor

Compared to Slack or MS Teams, Zulip is much easier to keep organized using the topics (filters for topic within a channel).

Senior Manager

We don't have it integrated with video calls, but I know that's something we can do easily with a plug-in.

There are minor bugs sometimes, my favorite one is that the go-back mouse button in the desktop app is broken.

Director, Indigenous Guardianship Program

Intuitive UI to have threaded conversations.

I'm also not sure about the state of the video conferencing for zulip (I think they offered it via jitsi?), but I do not expect this from a chat system at the moment.

Don’t have any complaints other than sometimes the iOS app gets a little slow or out of sync with incoming push notifications

I use it for quick communication with my research group of 15-20 students.

Community member

The chat functionality in the web client is awesome for distributed teams - well, for any team, actually.

Assistant Professor

The organization and storage of messages has enhanced the productivity of myself and colleagues for years.

Pumble vs Zulip Comparison (2026)

Pumble

Zulip

Overview

Video & Screenshots

Pricing

User reviews

Key features

Integrations

Alternatives