Zed is a code editor built from scratch in Rust by Nathan Sobo and the team that originally created Atom at GitHub. After watching Atom lose the editor wars to VS Code — largely due to Electron’s performance overhead — they set out to build the fastest graphical editor possible. Zed renders everything on the GPU using its own UI framework called GPUI, and the result is an editor that opens instantly, handles million-line files without stuttering, and keeps keystrokes feeling immediate even on large projects.
Performance alone wouldn’t be enough to pull developers away from VS Code’s extension ecosystem, so Zed focused on collaboration as the killer feature. Built-in real-time collaboration lets multiple developers edit the same file simultaneously with minimal latency — think Google Docs for code, but without the lag. Each participant sees others’ cursors, selections, and edits in real time. The collaboration works across the entire project, not just individual files.
Zed also integrated AI assistance directly into the editing experience. Inline code generation, a chat panel that can reference your codebase, and an AI-powered assistant that understands project context are all built in rather than bolted on through extensions. The editor supports Language Server Protocol for code intelligence across languages and includes a built-in terminal. Open-sourced in early 2024, Zed has attracted a growing community of contributors. The company employs about 30 people, has raised $10 million, and shipped Linux support alongside macOS. Zed’s approach is a bet that editor performance and native collaboration matter more than extension count.
