Element vs Zulip

Element (Founded by the creators of Matrix, we build digitally sovereign, secure and interoperable real-time communication solutions for large organisations.) and Zulip (Organized team chat) both appear on the Smoower Developer Ecosystem Index.

Element (rank #190) holds a modest lead over Zulip (rank #536) on the overall Smoower ecosystem score (50 vs 36). The gap of 14 points reflects composite signals across code, docs, community and reach.

On code quality (the state of repositories, tests, releases and polish), Element is ahead of Zulip. On education (docs, guides and learning material for developers), Element is ahead of Zulip. On community (issue response, PR reviews and discussion health), Element is slightly ahead of Zulip. On reach (how visible the ecosystem is beyond its own repos), Element is clearly ahead of Zulip. On momentum (release cadence and how fast the ecosystem moves), Element is clearly ahead of Zulip.

Element carries 34,608 GitHub stars across 137 public repos, with 33 repositories active in the last 90 days and 97 external contributors on record. Zulip shows 32,299 stars across 67 public repos, 9 active in the last 90 days and 76 external contributors.

Element is the stronger read for anyone weighting reach. Zulip makes more sense for teams already using its adjacent tools. The table below breaks the scores down pillar by pillar; the linked profiles cover the underlying repos, docs and community signals in full.