Zed — Code Editor
Zed is a code editor built from scratch in Rust by the creators of Atom, Electron, and Tree-sitter. Tagline: "Your last next editor." Available on macOS, Linux, Windows. Open source (MIT).
Key Features
- Parallel Agents: Run multiple AI agent threads across projects simultaneously
- Agentic Editing: AI can edit files, navigate code, and run tools at native speed
- Debugger: Built-in debugging via the Debug Adapter Protocol (DAP)
- Native Git Support: Staging, committing, pushing, pulling, viewing diffs
- Edit Prediction: Powered by Zeta2, an open-weight language model from Zed
- Remote Development: UI runs locally while code lives on a remote server
- Multibuffer Editing: Compose excerpts from across the codebase in one editable surface
- Vim-Friendly: First-class modal editing with Vim bindings
- Inline Assistant: Transform code in-line by sending selections to a language model
- Any Agent, Any Tool: Support for Claude Agent, Codex, OpenCode via ACP; MCP server integration
- Helix Mode, diagnostics multibuffer, dev containers, CLI, rainbow brackets, built-in REPL, syntax-aware selections, inlay hints
AI Capabilities
Doesn't lock users into one model. Zeta2.1 released May 2026 with "3x Fewer Tokens, 50ms Faster." Users can sign in with ChatGPT account to use OpenAI models.
Technical
- Written from scratch in Rust
- "Efficiently leverage multiple CPU cores and your GPU"
- Version 1.2.6
- Extensions ecosystem with hundreds of extensions (HTML 5.4M installs, TOML 1.1M, Git Firefly 1.0M)
Team
Founded by Nathan Sobo, Antonio Scandurra, and Max Brunsfeld (Atom, Electron, Tree-sitter). Vision: "the future of software development lies in fluent collaboration between humans and AI."
Notable Quotes
- Jose Valim: "Zed has all of the features I could ask for in an editor."
- Dan Abramov: "This is obviously a product built with love and care."
- Mike Bostock: "Lots of subtle innovations (multibuffers, inlay hints, collaboration). Thoughtful, precise design."
- Ethan Perez: "I was able to go from idea to running experiment code in half an hour"
- Matt Baker: "I knew VS Code always felt sluggish, but I didn't realize how good things could really be."