Zed
A Rust-built code editor with native AI collaboration — loads instantly, never lags, and treats AI assistance as a first-class feature rather than an extension.
Overview
Zed is a next-generation code editor built from scratch in Rust for speed and AI-native collaboration — it's the editor that loads instantly, never lags, and has AI assistance woven into its architecture rather than bolted on as an extension. Where VS Code with Copilot is an old editor with AI added, Zed treats AI as a first-class editor citizen: inline AI editing, slash commands in the chat panel, and multi-buffer editing all feel native. It supports collaboration features built in (like Google Docs for code), runs on your hardware efficiently, and integrates with Anthropic's Claude and other models. Used by developers who want the responsiveness of Vim with the features of VS Code and deeper AI integration than either.
Key Features
- Rust-based performance — near-instant startup
- Native AI editing and chat
- Real-time collaboration
- Multi-buffer editing
- Claude and GPT model support
- Open source
- • Dramatically faster than Electron-based editors
- • AI deeply integrated — not an afterthought
- • Free including AI features
- • Smaller extension ecosystem than VS Code
- • Mac-first (Linux support improving, Windows in progress)