# RingCentral vs Zulip

**Leader by vioscaleAI score:** RingCentral

| Attribute | RingCentral | Zulip |
|---|---|---|
| **vioscaleAI score** | 75.8 (72% (medium)) | 61.7 (72% (medium)) |
| content.faq | `[{"answer":"A cloud-based solution combining phone, messaging, video meetings, and intelligent contact center tools to automate and manage customer interactions and internal team communications. It is indexed under Collaboration Software.","source":"https://www.ringcentral.com/au/en/pricing/contact-center.html","question":"What is RingCentral?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"RingCentral offers a free tier, so you can start without paying. Paid plans start at $20 per user per month. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://www.ringcentral.com","question":"Is RingCentral free?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"RingCentral supports the web, Windows, macOS, iOS and Android. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://www.ringcentral.com/au/en/pricing/contact-center.html","question":"What platforms does RingCentral support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have only confirmed a cloud / SaaS deployment for RingCentral, so it appears to be vendor-hosted. If a self-hosted option exists we have not found it documented publicly.","source":"https://www.ringcentral.com/au/en/pricing/contact-center.html","question":"Can RingCentral be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 11 integrations for RingCentral, including Salesforce, HubSpot, Zendesk, Microsoft Teams, Google Workspace, Bullhorn, Netsuite and ServiceNow, plus 3 more. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://www.ringcentral.com/au/en/pricing/contact-center.html","question":"What does RingCentral integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have independently confirmed SOC 2, ISO 27001 and GDPR for RingCentral. Certifications we do not list are ones we have not been able to verify from public sources, which is not the same as RingCentral not holding them. Always confirm compliance directly before you rely on it.","source":"https://www.ringcentral.com/ie/en/legal/trust-center/security/agreements.html","question":"What security certifications does RingCentral have?","confidence":0.7},{"answer":"RingCentral is available worldwide. Its primary markets are the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany and France.","source":"https://www.ringcentral.com/au/en/pricing/contact-center.html","question":"Where is RingCentral available?","confidence":0.75}]` | `[{"answer":"An open-source team collaboration application that organizes conversations into topic-based threads, blending instant messaging with email-style threading to support both real-time and delayed communication patterns. It is indexed under Collaboration Software.","source":"https://zulip.com","question":"What is Zulip?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Zulip is open source, so it can be self-hosted and used at no licence cost. A commercial or hosted edition starts at $3.50 per user per month. Prices are published openly on the vendor's own pricing page. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://zulip.com/plans/","question":"Is Zulip free to use?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed browser-based access to Zulip. That is the extent of what we could verify from public sources, so it may well offer desktop or mobile clients we have not indexed.","source":"https://zulip.com","question":"What platforms does Zulip support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Zulip can be deployed cloud / SaaS and self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://zulip.com","question":"Can Zulip be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 61 integrations for Zulip, including Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord, Mattermost, Rocket.Chat, Matrix, IRC and Email, plus 53 more. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://zulip.com/plans/","question":"What does Zulip integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have independently confirmed HIPAA and GDPR for Zulip. Certifications we do not list are ones we have not been able to verify from public sources, which is not the same as Zulip not holding them. Always confirm compliance directly before you rely on it.","source":"https://zulip.com/security/","question":"What security certifications does Zulip have?","confidence":0.7}]` |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | A communication platform enabling businesses to automate and analyze customer interactions through AI-powered voice, messaging, and video capabilities. It helps organizations manage communications, improve customer satisfaction, and gain insights from customer interactions at scale. | An open-source team collaboration application that organizes conversations into topic-based threads, blending instant messaging with email-style threading to support both real-time and delayed communication patterns. |
| features.capabilities | `{"hosting":"cloud","sso_scim":true,"free_tier":true,"messaging":true,"api_access":true,"screen_sharing":true,"video_meetings":true,"app_marketplace":true,"max_participants":"up to 300 participants","compliance_controls":true,"guest_external_access":true,"recording_transcription":"recording_ai_notes"}` | `{"hosting":"both","sso_scim":true,"free_tier":true,"messaging":true,"api_access":true,"pricing_model":"per_seat_subscription","e2e_encryption":true,"screen_sharing":false,"video_meetings":true,"app_marketplace":true,"deployment_model":"cloud_saas","hipaa_compliance":true,"compliance_controls":true,"guest_external_access":true,"ad_hoc_voice_video_huddles":true,"cross_company_guest_channels":true,"threaded_reply_conversations":true,"automated_workflow_bot_builders":true,"channel_based_topic_organization":true,"google_workspace_office_365_sync":true,"jira_github_engineering_webhook_sync":true,"salesforce_zendesk_sales_support_sync":true,"robust_message_search_and_history_indexing":true}` |
| integrations.count | 500 | 130 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Salesforce"},{"name":"HubSpot"},{"name":"Zendesk"},{"name":"Microsoft Teams"},{"name":"Google Workspace"},{"name":"Bullhorn"},{"name":"Netsuite"},{"name":"ServiceNow"},{"name":"Sugar CRM"},{"name":"Dynamics"},{"name":"Microsoft 365","native":true,"category":"productivity"},{"name":"ChatGPT"},{"name":"Claude"}]` | `[{"name":"Slack"},{"name":"Microsoft Teams"},{"name":"Discord"},{"name":"Mattermost"},{"name":"Rocket.Chat"},{"name":"Matrix"},{"name":"IRC"},{"name":"Email"},{"name":"GitHub"},{"name":"GitLab"},{"name":"Bitbucket"},{"name":"Asana"},{"name":"Jira"},{"name":"Linear"},{"name":"Trello"},{"name":"Basecamp"},{"name":"Jenkins"},{"name":"CircleCI"},{"name":"GitHub Actions"},{"name":"Travis CI"},{"name":"TeamCity"},{"name":"Heroku"},{"name":"Netlify"},{"name":"Docker"},{"name":"Kubernetes"},{"name":"Ansible Tower"},{"name":"Puppet"},{"name":"Grafana"},{"name":"Prometheus"},{"name":"Nagios"},{"name":"New Relic"},{"name":"Sentry"},{"name":"PagerDuty"},{"name":"Opsgenie"},{"name":"Splunk"},{"name":"Freshdesk"},{"name":"Zendesk"},{"name":"Salesforce"},{"name":"Dropbox"},{"name":"Google Calendar"},{"name":"Nextcloud"},{"name":"Notion"},{"name":"Zapier"},{"name":"IFTTT"},{"name":"n8n"},{"name":"BigBlueButton"},{"name":"Jitsi Meet"},{"name":"Webex"},{"name":"Zoom"},{"name":"Tenor"},{"name":"Redmine","native":true,"category":"project_management","direction":"inbound"},{"name":"OpenProject","native":true,"category":"project_management","direction":"inbound"},{"name":"Zabbix","native":true,"category":"monitoring","direction":"inbound"},{"name":"Buildbot","native":true,"category":"ci_cd","direction":"inbound"},{"name":"GoCD","native":true,"category":"ci_cd","direction":"inbound"},{"name":"Stripe","native":true,"category":"payments","direction":"inbound"},{"name":"Okta","native":true,"category":"identity","direction":"inbound"},{"name":"OneLogin","native":true,"category":"identity","direction":"inbound"},{"name":"Microsoft Entra ID","native":true,"category":"identity","direction":"inbound"},{"name":"Discourse","native":true,"category":"community","direction":"inbound"},{"name":"Mastodon","native":true,"category":"social","direction":"inbound"},{"name":"Patreon","native":true,"category":"productivity","direction":"inbound"},{"name":"Airbrake","native":true,"category":"error_tracking","direction":"inbound"}]` |
| market.availability | `{"primaryMarkets":["US","CA","AU","GB","DE","FR","IT","ES","PT","SG"],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | `{"primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"ios":true,"mac":true,"web":true,"android":true,"windows":true}` | `{"web":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"subscription","plans":[{"free":false,"name":"Core","summary":"$20/user/month (billed annually)","features":["Unlimited domestic calling","On-demand call recording","100 toll-free minutes","25 SMS per user per month","HD meetings (200 participants)","AI Receptionist add-on","AI Virtual Assistant","Captions & transcriptions","Notes & summaries"],"commitment":"annual","components":[{"kind":"per_unit","unit":"seat","amount":20,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"Unify calls, meetings, and chat in an all-in-one, professional app","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"sms_per_user":"25/month","toll_free_minutes":"100","meeting_participants":"200"}},{"free":false,"name":"Advanced","summary":"$25/user/month (billed annually)","features":["Everything in Core","CRM integrations","Connect multiple sites","Core reporting and insights","1000 toll-free minutes","100 SMS per user per month","AI Receptionist add-on","AI Virtual Assistant","AI Writer","Captions & transcriptions","Notes & summaries"],"commitment":"annual","components":[{"kind":"per_unit","unit":"seat","amount":25,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"Connect teams across locations and improve customer engagement","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"sms_per_user":"100/month","toll_free_minutes":"1000"}},{"free":false,"name":"Ultra","summary":"$35/user/month (billed annually)","features":["Everything in Advanced","10000 toll-free minutes","200 SMS per user per month","RingCentral Webinar","Historical and real-time insights","Unlimited storage","Device analytics & alerts","All AI Virtual Assistant features"],"commitment":"annual","components":[{"kind":"per_unit","unit":"seat","amount":35,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"Engage audiences at scale, backed by deep business insights","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"sms_per_user":"200/month","toll_free_minutes":"10000"}},{"free":false,"name":"Customer Engagement Bundle","summary":"Custom pricing","features":["Everything in Ultra","Business SMS Booster","Call Queues Booster"],"description":"Orchestrate faster, consistent service with connected voice & SMS","contactSales":true}],"addOns":[{"name":"AI Receptionist (AIR)"}],"summary":"From $20/user/month (billed annually). Free trial available.","currency":"USD","freeTier":false,"sourceUrl":"https://www.ringcentral.com","retrievedAt":"2026-08-03T14:28:56.383Z","startingPrice":{"amount":20,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["month","year"]}` | `{"type":"hybrid","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Free","summary":"Free, limited to 10,000 message history","features":["Message history search (10,000 limit)","File storage up to 5 GB total","Complete team chat solution","Hundreds of integrations","Advanced roles and permissions","Guest accounts"],"components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":0,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"Cloud plan with limited history and storage","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"storage":"5 GB total","messages_history":"10,000"}},{"free":false,"name":"Standard","summary":"$6.67/user/month billed annually or $8/month","features":["Unlimited search history","File storage up to 5 GB per user","Flexible permissions with custom groups","Message retention policies","Brand Zulip with your logo","Priority commercial support","Public access option"],"commitment":"annual","components":[{"kind":"per_unit","unit":"seat","amount":6.67,"period":"year","currency":"USD"},{"kind":"per_unit","unit":"seat","amount":8,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"Full-featured cloud plan","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"storage":"5 GB per user"}},{"free":false,"name":"Plus","summary":"$10/user/month billed annually or $12/month","features":["All Standard plan features","File storage up to 25 GB per user","SSO with SAML (Okta, OneLogIn)","SCIM user and group sync","Custom domain","Limit user list access for guests"],"minSeats":10,"commitment":"annual","components":[{"kind":"per_unit","unit":"seat","amount":10,"period":"year","currency":"USD"},{"kind":"per_unit","unit":"seat","amount":12,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"Advanced cloud plan with enhanced features","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"storage":"25 GB per user"}},{"free":true,"name":"Self-hosted (Open Source)","summary":"Free, open-source self-hosted","features":["Complete team chat solution with all Zulip features without limitation","100% open-source software","Retain full control over your data"],"components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":0,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"Free open-source self-hosted option","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{}},{"free":false,"name":"Self-hosted Basic","summary":"$3.50/user/month (with $20/month first-year discount)","features":["Unlimited support","Email and chat support","SSO with SAML and Microsoft Entra ID","AD/LDAP user sync","Full compliance","Data exports","Data retention policies"],"commitment":"monthly","components":[{"kind":"per_unit","unit":"seat","amount":3.5,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"Commercial support plan for self-hosted deployments","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{}},{"free":false,"name":"Self-hosted Enterprise","summary":"Contact sales for pricing","features":["Email, chat and phone support","SSO with OpenID Connect","AD/LDAP, SAML and OpenID Connect group sync","Implementation consulting","Custom feature development","Advanced deployment options"],"description":"Premium support plan for self-hosted deployments","contactSales":true,"includedLimits":{}}],"summary":"From $6.67/user/month (cloud annual), free open-source self-hosted option, or $3.50/user/month for commercial self-hosted support. Free tier available.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://zulip.com/plans/","retrievedAt":"2026-09-03T17:54:41.041Z","startingPrice":{"unit":"seat","amount":3.5,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["month","year"]}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | freemium | open_source |
| pricing.price_level | low | free |
| pricing.starting_price | - | `{"amount":3.5,"currency":"USD"}` |
| pricing.transparent | no | yes |
| reliability.sla_pct | 99.999 | - |
| reliability.status_page | yes | yes |
| security.disclosure_policy | yes | yes |
| security.gdpr | yes | yes |
| security.hipaa | - | yes |
| security.iso27001 | yes | - |
| security.soc2 | yes | - |
| security.trust_center | - | https://zulip.com/security/ |

## Capabilities (Collaboration Software)

| Capability | RingCentral | Zulip |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Modality** |  |  |
| Messaging | ✓ | ✓ |
| Video meetings | ✓ | ✓ |
| Whiteboard | - | - |
| **Meetings** |  |  |
| Screen sharing | ✓ | ✗ |
| Recording / transcription | Recording + AI notes | - |
| **Security** |  |  |
| End-to-end encryption | - | ✓ |
| SSO / SCIM | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Access** |  |  |
| Guest / external access | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Compliance** |  |  |
| Compliance controls | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Hosting | Cloud only | Cloud + self-hosted |
| **Scale** |  |  |
| Max participants | up to 300 participants | - |
| **Ecosystem** |  |  |
| App marketplace | ✓ | ✓ |
| Public API / bot framework | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Commercial** |  |  |
| Free tier | ✓ | ✓ |

*Source: vioscaleAI. Generated 2026-10-16T20:59:36.844Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*