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.