I feel like the average person isn't looking for something professional grade, sadly it's hard to get people to go away from Discord at the moment. Hard to suggest alternatives if people aren't seeking them yet.

If I had to say it would have to be something customizable, letting a user to delete their data even after getting kicked from a server, very fast and seamless joining process ,great gif/sticker support without any premium features etc. But really that's just some fantasy app lol. Discord is doing just fine destroying itself however

By the way, I didn't know there was an instant online test app because when I searched for Zulip I was in the download page and it doesn't say anything about trying it online. Seems like a strange suggestion UX wise but that's how I feel about it (wonder how many people missed out on this?), same thing after you enter the app. It should have a test area for the new user to chat around by himself with a bot or something with locally/session stored messages.

Hey, cool :-). I've used Zulip for a bit and really enjoyed it.

We're planning to roll it out at our company (foundata) in Q4, so you’ll get at least a few bucks from us. I'll also happily recommend it to our customers. As an OSS company and service provider, I can very much relate to the lack of marketing budget and the constant SEO spam.

Oh please, fix your self-deployment story first. Search "zulip docker" or "zulip self host". It seems like you guys just deleted your compose file right when folks are looking for alternatives. Even before this refactor I gave it a good try for an hour before just moving on to RocketChat/Mattermost. It seems like you just don't try the product as if you're a customer.