Zed

Zed is a next-generation code editor created by Nathan Sobo (co-creator of GitHub's Atom editor) and the team behind Tree-sitter. Written in Rust for native performance, Zed renders at 120fps and starts instantly even with large codebases — directly addressing performance frustrations with Electron-based editors like VS Code.

## What Zed Does Well

**Raw performance** is Zed's most visceral advantage. The editor is built with Rust's GPU-accelerated rendering (GPUI framework), making it feel instantaneous compared to JavaScript-based editors. Scrolling, search, and workspace switching are all noticeably faster in normal use.

**Built-in AI (Zed Assistant)** integrates directly with leading language models — Claude, GPT-4o, and others — for code generation, explanation, and editing assistance. The AI context is aware of the current file, open buffers, and cursor location. Zed's inline editing approach makes AI suggestions feel like a natural part of the editing flow rather than a separate pane.

**Real-time collaboration** allows multiple developers to edit the same file simultaneously, with presence indicators and synchronized cursors. This was a core feature inherited from Zed's origin as the successor to Atom's collaborative features.

**Tree-sitter integration** (Zed was built by Tree-sitter's creator) provides robust, language-aware syntax highlighting and code structure understanding across virtually all languages.

**Open source** (Apache 2.0 and GPL) since 2024, allowing community extensions and transparency.

## Who Zed Is For

Zed appeals to developers who prioritize editor performance and want AI tooling built in rather than bolted on via extensions. It is currently macOS-native (Linux support in development); Windows is not yet supported. The editor is free.