Zed is probably the best text editor in the last 10 years. It has quirks, but it is insanely powerful and capable out of the box. I don't even bother trying to setup Neovim because of Zed. They let people for PRs for missing vim features for their vim emulation, and its insanely capable.
I hope someday they get the funding they deserve, because it has insane potential. It's why I subscribe to their pay plan, even if I dont use it all the time, I want them to succeed.
Love your editor again
Zed is a minimal code editor crafted for speed and collaboration with humans and AI.
At home, I don't use any AI when coding, to keep my brain sharp. But it's clear that Zed's focus is on AI integration because that's where the money's going (seriously, where is the setting to have a different ui icon size vs ui font size). Is there any editor still being being developed and focusing on the experience of coding by hand?
> seriously, where is the setting to have a different ui size vs ui font size
Search for font size in preferences.
You'll see a 'font size' under 'buffer' (editor), under 'UI Font', and under 'Agent Panel' to let you control font sizes in all of those places independently.
> Is there any editor still being being developed and focusing on the experience of coding by hand?
Zed lets you hand-edit too! It's fast and decent. vim, neovim, Emacs, Helix, and JetBrains products continue to do that well too. There are still more traditional IDEs/editors than pure AI ones.
You can also toggle AI features off in Zed from preferences if you want to.
ah I forgot a word, I meant the ui icon size. If I bump up the ui font size so that I can distinguish the icons apart on my large monitor, the ui text becomes comically large.
I do use Zed without AI features, it's just a bit of a disappointment (though understandable) since it was originally marketed as just a nice speedy editor.
I don't think changing icon size independent of UI font size would be a dealbreaker for many. (I'm quite happy having icons that scale in line with font size, but then I use the Material Icon Theme, which is easy to scan at most sizes.)
I like LLMs, I like Zed, but I turn off the AI features. I rather have Claude or Open Code in a container with only access to a mounted folder, or use a local model.
And Zed lets me do that while remaining fast and minimal.
As for (even more) minimal editors, perhaps just Gnome Edit? Or Kate?
The thing is, they have to monetize somehow. There's a setting to turn all AI features off with one toggle and you're back to an 'editor still being being developed and focusing on the experience of coding by hand'
100%. I recently got rid of my lsp-booster and similar kludges because the builtin language server client (eglot) is now fast enough without it, even on large projects.
And if you want AI integration at your choice and control, agent-shell (and chatgpt-shell, which is LLM-agnostic despite the name) are great packages. They’re totally hackable with elisp like you’d expect, which I personally haven’t done a ton with, because I use AI pretty sparingly, but I imagine the crowd here could come up with plenty of ideas for how to program your editor and your agent interface together.
> You do realize software engineering is in the midst of a tectonic shift?
As an everyday user of AI, both at work and privately, I am not that convinced. The biggest effect I've seen so far is demand for faster work because "everything is faster with agents", but software quality is slowly dropping in software I see around me.
Current AI is very useful as a trivia engine and as a language manipulation tool - i.e. it can quickly extract information from a huge amount of text. But it still sucks when writing new things.
Admittedly, here has been much progress, but it seems to be slowing down. Money is drying out, models are getting nerfed, and only better scaffolding and workflows are making it better. Unless they build 100x more data centers, I don't see models getting significantly better.
I really want to like Zed, but for some reason the way it interfaces with the TypeScript language server is dog slow compared to VS Code and its derivatives.
I've used Zed since the very beginning and I remain a fan. Its LLM integration so far has been a lot more pleasant than what I see in others and the editor is perfectly usable without using LLMs.
Its multi buffer and speed sound trivial but using anything else feels wrong now.
I'm buying into this workflow more the more I use it, but the real gamechanger is (a) parallel threads in worktrees, with (b) enough lifecycle hooks to treat them similarly to spinning up a VM.
Specifically for me that means that after I create a worktree I get some local config files copied over and Postgres duplicating my local dev and test databases so I can test in isolation, and then when I close out a worktree it deletes those databases.
The best at that that I've found is Conductor, but I can't use it at work because we only have Copilot and they're locked to a Claude/Codex backend. Arbor is close, but it's not under as active development and has a lot of rough edges. Opencode GUI has create hooks but not teardown.
If Zed can hook that up _and_ also keep its great editor roots, that'll definitely be a game changer.
Warp launched something similar a week or so ago, but the Zed implementation I find a lot more logical. Will give Zed another try, as I’m overdue for my monthly “maybe I should try this terminal/IDE” itch.
I like Warp but something about it is very opaque and confusing. Maybe it has a learning curve I haven't committed to, or it's just very alpha and evolving often.
It's pretty clear by this point that everyone is going towards parallel agents and worktrees, but TBH I am surprised to see an offering from Zed, seeing how heavy they lean into being editor-heavy and having AI features be strictly optional.
The key advantages Zed has are being agent-agnostic (so not a first party UI like Claude/Codex/Cursor Desktop), supporting multiple repositories on the same agent via creating a worktree for each automatically, and having a high quality custom agent UI rather than wrapping over CLIs (I've used their IDE's agent UI in the past and it's great). AFAIK, this is the first mainstream tool that supports all of these features.
yeah, but they don't support a lot of the features Claude does like MCP integration. we've booked this up to logfire (telemetry provider) and it's a game changer when doing optimisation or diagnosis of bugs. plugins and skills also missing. but it is nice to switch between provider easily
Luckily it's very easy to change, although a bit unintuitive for new users. You right-click the small icon for each type of panel in the bottom bar, and select where you want it to be docked. Left click toggles the panel into view.
I loved zed for over 1 year, told for everybody to use it, because it was so fast and great.
But now using claude-code,gemini-cli,codex,etc it just seems less relevant. Just opened nvim with lazyvim and it feels nice, since I'm in terminal anyway it just feels more natural.
Still have zed opened, still like it but I guess honeymoon is over.
What I want is a stateful file-writing layer that is aware of all clients (aka agents and humans) and their activity. It provides its own locking mechanisms, and prevents agents from overwriting each others work. That way you could have multiple agents operating on the same codebase, without having to futz with worktrees and all that.
I'm having a hard time adjusting to the Project Panel on the right (and, at least for me, hidden by default) - seems like they're trying to bury the concept of a 'file'?
It's certainly interesting though, and I'll give it some time - the post says "It feels more natural once you've spent a little time with it"
I liked the idea of the new layout with the agent thread on the left, it goes hand-in-hand with having multiple threads that are easy to switch between and running concurrently, but I switched back because my file tree disappeared and I couldn't easily see how to add it back
In the new layout, the project panel and git panel are just moved to the right side, so that the agent panel could be on the left, and you could still view both at the same time.
Is this any different from a setup where I use a terminal with tabs and splits, running my favorite editor in one or more panes, and several agents (Claude Code and Codex) in several other panes and tabs?
Edit: Although I can integrate an agent in NeoVim, I don’t do it. I want to use my editor solely for that purpose, while the rest (versioning, agentic coding, git client, etc.) is done in the terminal. My NeoVim setup is simple and fast, which is why I prefer it over any other IDE or editor. Especially with the native package manager in the latest version. I also replaced BBEdit by installing Neovide, a GUI version of NeoVim. It starts in a split second and is incredibly smooth and fast. And it’s so enjoyable to work with that I use it as my preferred frontend to Obsidian.
Zed is probably the best text editor in the last 10 years. It has quirks, but it is insanely powerful and capable out of the box. I don't even bother trying to setup Neovim because of Zed. They let people for PRs for missing vim features for their vim emulation, and its insanely capable.
I hope someday they get the funding they deserve, because it has insane potential. It's why I subscribe to their pay plan, even if I dont use it all the time, I want them to succeed.
Funny how Zed's tagline is
At home, I don't use any AI when coding, to keep my brain sharp. But it's clear that Zed's focus is on AI integration because that's where the money's going (seriously, where is the setting to have a different ui icon size vs ui font size). Is there any editor still being being developed and focusing on the experience of coding by hand?> seriously, where is the setting to have a different ui size vs ui font size
Search for font size in preferences.
You'll see a 'font size' under 'buffer' (editor), under 'UI Font', and under 'Agent Panel' to let you control font sizes in all of those places independently.
> Is there any editor still being being developed and focusing on the experience of coding by hand?
Zed lets you hand-edit too! It's fast and decent. vim, neovim, Emacs, Helix, and JetBrains products continue to do that well too. There are still more traditional IDEs/editors than pure AI ones.
You can also toggle AI features off in Zed from preferences if you want to.
ah I forgot a word, I meant the ui icon size. If I bump up the ui font size so that I can distinguish the icons apart on my large monitor, the ui text becomes comically large.
I do use Zed without AI features, it's just a bit of a disappointment (though understandable) since it was originally marketed as just a nice speedy editor.
Have you tried a different icon theme? Some are just easier to see than others. The default icon theme is pretty light.
https://zed.dev/docs/icon-themes
I don't think changing icon size independent of UI font size would be a dealbreaker for many. (I'm quite happy having icons that scale in line with font size, but then I use the Material Icon Theme, which is easy to scan at most sizes.)
It's still a nice speedy editor. It didn't lose any features to make room for AI
Is Zed lacking any feature you need?
A proper git implementation.
I end up doing things in the terminal tab because its faster than the ui or is more clear.
The basics are good but thats about it.
What git features are you missing? We've been adding a ton recently
Zed is fantastic for coding by hand. The multibuffer editor and 120fps resizing is orgasmic
I like LLMs, I like Zed, but I turn off the AI features. I rather have Claude or Open Code in a container with only access to a mounted folder, or use a local model.
And Zed lets me do that while remaining fast and minimal.
As for (even more) minimal editors, perhaps just Gnome Edit? Or Kate?
Doesn't really count, but: https://gram.liten.app/
> ”What cannot be mended must be transcended.”
such a dark and gloomy quote as the mission statement.
The thing is, they have to monetize somehow. There's a setting to turn all AI features off with one toggle and you're back to an 'editor still being being developed and focusing on the experience of coding by hand'
Helix?
Vim? Emacs? Sublime Text?
Emacs. ;)
100%. I recently got rid of my lsp-booster and similar kludges because the builtin language server client (eglot) is now fast enough without it, even on large projects.
And if you want AI integration at your choice and control, agent-shell (and chatgpt-shell, which is LLM-agnostic despite the name) are great packages. They’re totally hackable with elisp like you’d expect, which I personally haven’t done a ton with, because I use AI pretty sparingly, but I imagine the crowd here could come up with plenty of ideas for how to program your editor and your agent interface together.
neovim or eMacs are the best text editors as up today.
> But it's clear that Zed's focus is on AI integration because that's where the money's going
Do you really think Zed's focus on AI is just about money? You do realize software engineering is in the midst of a tectonic shift?
> You do realize software engineering is in the midst of a tectonic shift?
As an everyday user of AI, both at work and privately, I am not that convinced. The biggest effect I've seen so far is demand for faster work because "everything is faster with agents", but software quality is slowly dropping in software I see around me.
Current AI is very useful as a trivia engine and as a language manipulation tool - i.e. it can quickly extract information from a huge amount of text. But it still sucks when writing new things.
Admittedly, here has been much progress, but it seems to be slowing down. Money is drying out, models are getting nerfed, and only better scaffolding and workflows are making it better. Unless they build 100x more data centers, I don't see models getting significantly better.
> Do you really think Zed's focus on AI is just about money?
Yes? Legitimately curious what other explanation is there here, thats the reason all of these LLM integrations across all software is being pushed.
I really want to like Zed, but for some reason the way it interfaces with the TypeScript language server is dog slow compared to VS Code and its derivatives.
I've used Zed since the very beginning and I remain a fan. Its LLM integration so far has been a lot more pleasant than what I see in others and the editor is perfectly usable without using LLMs.
Its multi buffer and speed sound trivial but using anything else feels wrong now.
I'm buying into this workflow more the more I use it, but the real gamechanger is (a) parallel threads in worktrees, with (b) enough lifecycle hooks to treat them similarly to spinning up a VM.
Specifically for me that means that after I create a worktree I get some local config files copied over and Postgres duplicating my local dev and test databases so I can test in isolation, and then when I close out a worktree it deletes those databases.
The best at that that I've found is Conductor, but I can't use it at work because we only have Copilot and they're locked to a Claude/Codex backend. Arbor is close, but it's not under as active development and has a lot of rough edges. Opencode GUI has create hooks but not teardown.
If Zed can hook that up _and_ also keep its great editor roots, that'll definitely be a game changer.
We support create git worktree hooks too
Is there an example of this?
> The best at that that I've found is Conductor, but I can't use it at work because we only have Copilot and they're locked to a Claude/Codex backend.
FYI, you can use Copilot directly in Zed!
If Cursor is worth $60bn, how much is Zed worth?
Warp launched something similar a week or so ago, but the Zed implementation I find a lot more logical. Will give Zed another try, as I’m overdue for my monthly “maybe I should try this terminal/IDE” itch.
I like Warp but something about it is very opaque and confusing. Maybe it has a learning curve I haven't committed to, or it's just very alpha and evolving often.
Yesterday, I determined to move to Zed because they weren't pushing this stuff :(
You can disable all AI features in Zed with a single setting: https://zed.dev/blog/disable-ai-features
It doesn’t mean the bulk of their effort isn’t going to AI slopshit.
zed's got about 60 billion reasons to add an agent panel
Zed was one of the very-early editors to jump on adding AI. Might want to look elsewhere.
They are at least more tasteful about it, but they do have to keep getting VCs. And no one has ever accused VCs of being smart or technical.
It's pretty clear by this point that everyone is going towards parallel agents and worktrees, but TBH I am surprised to see an offering from Zed, seeing how heavy they lean into being editor-heavy and having AI features be strictly optional.
The key advantages Zed has are being agent-agnostic (so not a first party UI like Claude/Codex/Cursor Desktop), supporting multiple repositories on the same agent via creating a worktree for each automatically, and having a high quality custom agent UI rather than wrapping over CLIs (I've used their IDE's agent UI in the past and it's great). AFAIK, this is the first mainstream tool that supports all of these features.
yeah, but they don't support a lot of the features Claude does like MCP integration. we've booked this up to logfire (telemetry provider) and it's a game changer when doing optimisation or diagnosis of bugs. plugins and skills also missing. but it is nice to switch between provider easily
I personally don't love the idea of the default layout pushing aside my code and filetree to make space for AI tools
I really like Zed, I use it every day. But, if I'd seen this layout when I first installed, I never would have taken it seriously
I imagine this will push some new users away
> I imagine this will push some new users away
I suspect it will gain them more users than it will lose
Most other tools doing this are heavy, buggy, and built on electron
Luckily it's very easy to change, although a bit unintuitive for new users. You right-click the small icon for each type of panel in the bottom bar, and select where you want it to be docked. Left click toggles the panel into view.
Love Zed.
I loved zed for over 1 year, told for everybody to use it, because it was so fast and great.
But now using claude-code,gemini-cli,codex,etc it just seems less relevant. Just opened nvim with lazyvim and it feels nice, since I'm in terminal anyway it just feels more natural.
Still have zed opened, still like it but I guess honeymoon is over.
What I want is a stateful file-writing layer that is aware of all clients (aka agents and humans) and their activity. It provides its own locking mechanisms, and prevents agents from overwriting each others work. That way you could have multiple agents operating on the same codebase, without having to futz with worktrees and all that.
I'm having a hard time adjusting to the Project Panel on the right (and, at least for me, hidden by default) - seems like they're trying to bury the concept of a 'file'?
It's certainly interesting though, and I'll give it some time - the post says "It feels more natural once you've spent a little time with it"
I liked the idea of the new layout with the agent thread on the left, it goes hand-in-hand with having multiple threads that are easy to switch between and running concurrently, but I switched back because my file tree disappeared and I couldn't easily see how to add it back
In the new layout, the project panel and git panel are just moved to the right side, so that the agent panel could be on the left, and you could still view both at the same time.
I just installed Zed last night and enabled vim mode, can't wait to try this!
I remember when Zed's main thing was "collaborative" editing. Not as profitable as AI I suppose.
I've been a Sublime Text user for years, then a VSCode for years. Been trying Zed for the past couple weeks and it has been a good experience.
Is this any different from a setup where I use a terminal with tabs and splits, running my favorite editor in one or more panes, and several agents (Claude Code and Codex) in several other panes and tabs?
Edit: Although I can integrate an agent in NeoVim, I don’t do it. I want to use my editor solely for that purpose, while the rest (versioning, agentic coding, git client, etc.) is done in the terminal. My NeoVim setup is simple and fast, which is why I prefer it over any other IDE or editor. Especially with the native package manager in the latest version. I also replaced BBEdit by installing Neovide, a GUI version of NeoVim. It starts in a split second and is incredibly smooth and fast. And it’s so enjoyable to work with that I use it as my preferred frontend to Obsidian.
Becoming more and more useful by teh day. Love to see it.