What Zed Does
Zed is the editor that the creators of Atom wish they had built the first time. After watching Atom struggle with Electron's performance overhead and eventually lose to VS Code, the team went back to fundamentals and asked: what would a code editor look like if you built it from scratch in a systems language with GPU rendering and zero compromise on speed? The answer is Zed — an editor that loads a hundred-thousand-line monorepo in under a second, renders at a hundred and twenty frames per second, and responds to keystrokes with essentially zero latency.
Performance and Real-Time Collaboration
The performance difference is not incremental. It is generational. If you have used VS Code for years and open Zed for the first time, you will physically feel the difference. Files open instantly. Scrolling is butter-smooth. Search results appear as you type without the micro-stutters that Electron editors introduce. This is not a benchmark curiosity — it changes how you interact with your codebase. When every action is instantaneous, you explore more freely, refactor more willingly, and context-switch between files without the subconscious friction that accumulates over a day of editing.
Real-time collaboration is built into the architecture, not layered on as an extension. You can share a workspace and edit simultaneously with other developers, seeing their cursors and changes in real time with sub-millisecond latency. This is Zed's strongest differentiator for teams. VS Code's Live Share works but adds noticeable lag. Cursor has no native collaboration. For pair programming and mob programming sessions, Zed offers an experience that feels like working on the same machine rather than sharing a screen.
AI Integration and Agent Client Protocol
AI integration takes a measured approach. Zed includes an Assistant panel that supports Claude, GPT, Gemini, and any OpenAI-compatible API — including local models through LM Studio or Ollama. This means you can run AI assistance entirely on your own hardware, with code never leaving your machine. For privacy-conscious developers and teams with strict data residency requirements, this is a significant advantage. The AI features are capable for inline assistance and code explanation, though they do not match Cursor's project-wide context awareness or multi-file editing capabilities.
The Agent Client Protocol is Zed's most forward-looking move. Rather than building proprietary agent integrations, Zed published an open standard and built a registry where you can install Claude Agent, Gemini CLI, Codex, or any ACP-compatible agent directly inside the editor. JetBrains now supports ACP as well. This is architecturally more open than Cursor's closed approach, and if the ecosystem grows, it could give Zed agent flexibility that no other editor can match. The protocol is still maturing, but the vision is compelling.
Extension Ecosystem and Built-In Features
The extension ecosystem is Zed's most significant limitation. While it has grown substantially and covers most mainstream languages and frameworks, it remains a fraction of VS Code's thirty-thousand-plus extensions. Specialized tools for database management, Kubernetes, specific framework debuggers, and niche formatters may not have Zed equivalents. For developers whose workflow depends on particular VS Code extensions, this gap can be a dealbreaker. Zed uses Tree-sitter for syntax highlighting and a WebAssembly-based extension system, both of which are technically sound but require extensions to be written differently than VS Code extensions.
The editor ships with excellent built-in features that reduce extension dependency. Multi-cursor editing, split panes, an integrated terminal, project-wide search, and a command palette are all polished and fast. The Vim mode is thorough enough for dedicated Vim users to feel at home. Git integration is basic but functional — you get inline blame and diff views without needing an extension like GitLens. For developers whose needs are covered by the built-in feature set, the smaller extension ecosystem is less of an issue.
Platform Support and Stability
Platform support has expanded to cover macOS, Linux, and Windows. The Windows release was a significant milestone that opened Zed to a much larger developer audience. Performance is consistent across all platforms, with the Rust and GPU rendering architecture delivering the same speed regardless of operating system.
Stability has improved significantly since early 2025, when users reported CPU spikes and UI bugs that generated negative attention. The Zed team addressed most of these issues, and the editor in 2026 feels substantially more mature. That said, it is a younger codebase than VS Code, and edge cases in less common workflows still surface occasionally. The trajectory is upward, and the team ships updates at a rapid pace.
The Bottom Line
Zed is not yet a complete VS Code replacement for most developers. The extension gap is real, and the AI capabilities, while solid, do not match Cursor's depth. But Zed is the most exciting editor in the market because it proves that a code editor can be fast, beautiful, collaborative, and AI-capable simultaneously. Many developers are adopting a hybrid approach — using Zed as their primary editor for speed-critical work while keeping Cursor or Claude Code available for heavy AI operations. If the extension ecosystem continues to grow and the Agent Client Protocol gains traction, Zed has a realistic path to becoming the default editor for a new generation of developers who refuse to accept Electron's performance compromises.
