Best of Zed — 2025

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    Video
    Avatar of gamefromscratchGamefromscratch·30w

    Zed - The 'Visual Studio Code Killer' - Now on Windows!

    Zed, a performance-focused code editor built in Rust, is now available on Windows after being Mac and Linux exclusive. The editor emphasizes speed through GPU acceleration and multi-core CPU usage, featuring instant startup times and responsive UI. It includes AI integration with support for multiple providers (Gemini, Copilot), built-in debugging, git integration, real-time collaboration, and an extension system. While the Windows port is functional, some features like language servers may require additional setup compared to the more mature Mac and Linux versions.

  2. 2
    Video
    Avatar of indentlyIndently·48w

    I'm a huge Zed fan

    A developer shares their experience switching from PyCharm to Zed editor after 2 months of use. They highlight Zed's superior performance on older hardware, smooth user experience, and easy JSON-based configuration. Key features discussed include the new debugger, custom snippets, multi-language support, and integrated AI capabilities. The switch was motivated by PyCharm being overkill for simple development tasks, while Zed provides a lightweight yet feature-rich alternative with excellent customization options.

  3. 3
    Article
    Avatar of zedZed·23w

    How We Rebuilt Settings in Zed — Zed's Blog

    The Zed team rebuilt their settings editor from scratch, moving from a distributed, macro-based architecture to a centralized, strongly-typed model. The refactoring consolidated scattered settings definitions into UserSettings and ProjectSettings types, treating configuration files as the organizing principle rather than implementation details. They enhanced their GPUI framework with automated focus handling through tab groups and local state management similar to React's useState. The project revealed architectural weaknesses (including an auto-update bug) but resulted in a cleaner foundation for future features.

  4. 4
    Article
    Avatar of zedZed·32w

    Windows When? Windows Now — Zed's Blog

    Zed code editor launches stable Windows support with native DirectX 11 rendering and DirectWrite text integration. The release includes full WSL and SSH remoting capabilities, allowing developers to edit files on Linux systems directly from Windows. All Zed extensions work without modification through WebAssembly Components and WASI sandboxing. AI features including edit predictions and ACP-powered agents are fully supported on Windows. The team maintains dedicated Windows engineers and will ship weekly updates matching their Mac and Linux release cadence.

  5. 5
    Video
    Avatar of codetothemoonCode to the Moon·26w

    Zed the IDE (Yes, I tried Cursor & Antigravity)

    A hands-on review of Zed IDE exploring its performance advantages, AI coding capabilities, and unique approach to agentic development. The editor is built in Rust for speed and memory efficiency, supports Vim motions, and implements the Agent Communication Protocol (ACP) for integration with external coding agents like Claude Code and OpenCode. Key features include 120fps rendering, real-time collaboration tools, and flexible AI provider options including local inference with Ollama. The review compares Zed's architecture to Electron-based editors like VS Code and Cursor, noting the performance trade-offs and discussing the $10/month Zed Pro subscription value proposition.

  6. 6
    Article
    Avatar of theregisterThe Register·34w

    Zed's dead, baby. Zed's dead? No, wait – it's on Windows

    Zed Industries has released a public beta of its Rust-based code editor for Windows, addressing a critical gap since Windows is used by 49.5% of professional developers. The beta is available through Discord with general availability planned for October. Performance tests show Zed uses significantly less RAM than VS Code (142MB vs 730MB) and includes WSL integration for Linux development workflows.

  7. 7
    Article
    Avatar of zedZed·25w

    Zed Has Rainbow Brackets — Zed's Blog

    Zed code editor introduces rainbow brackets, a highly-requested feature that colors nested brackets at different levels for improved code readability. The implementation uses a chunk-based approach with tree-sitter queries rather than maintaining full syntax trees in memory. Brackets are colored in 50-row chunks that invalidate on buffer changes but only re-query when visible, avoiding the complexity of global state management. The feature is opt-in per language, reuses theme accent colors, and includes performance optimizations to tree-sitter's query execution.

  8. 8
    Article
    Avatar of zedZed·36w

    Hired Through GitHub: Part 1 — Zed's Blog

    Zed Industries shares stories of developers who joined their team through open source contributions rather than traditional hiring. The post highlights two contributors: Junkui Zhang, who became their top external contributor by implementing Windows support features, and Anthony Eid, who worked on the highly-requested debugger feature. Both developers started as community contributors, engaged through GitHub and Discord, demonstrated consistent code quality, and eventually transitioned to full-time team members after building relationships through pair programming sessions.

  9. 9
    Article
    Avatar of zedZed·40w

    Why LLMs Can't Really Build Software — Zed's Blog

    Large Language Models excel at writing code but struggle with the iterative mental modeling that defines effective software engineering. While LLMs can generate code and update it when given specific problems, they cannot maintain clear mental models of requirements versus implementation, leading to confusion when tests fail or debugging is needed. Current models suffer from context omission, recency bias, and hallucination issues that prevent them from understanding complex software systems. For non-trivial projects, human engineers must remain in control, using LLMs as tools while maintaining responsibility for requirements clarity and code verification.

  10. 10
    Article
    Avatar of andrewlock.NET Escapades·24w

    Trying out the Zed editor on Windows for .NET and Markdown

    Zed editor on Windows offers impressive speed and smoothness compared to VS Code, with adequate support for .NET development through the OmniSharp extension. However, it falls short for Markdown editing, lacking key features like keyboard shortcuts for formatting, code folding, IntelliSense for links, and synchronized preview scrolling. While .NET editing works well (except for Razor files), the missing Markdown conveniences and intrusive autocomplete suggestions make it not yet ready to replace VS Code for writing documentation. The author remains optimistic about future improvements given Zed's rapid development pace.

  11. 11
    Article
    Avatar of hnHacker News·40w

    zedless-editor/zed: (WIP) Zed fork focused on privacy and being local-first

    Zedless is a privacy-focused fork of the Zed code editor that removes telemetry, cloud dependencies, and proprietary services. The project prioritizes local-first functionality, allows users to configure their own infrastructure providers, and maintains contributor copyright without requiring CLAs. Currently in development, it aims to provide a self-hosted alternative to cloud-based development tools.

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