Reviewing Zed: An IDE of the Future

Will this hyped, new, modern, fast, and recently open-source IDE be the VSCode killer?

Junaid Ali Shah Haidery
CEO of JasGiigli

---

Disclaimer
Zed is still in beta at the time of writing this article. It's not a fully-fledged IDE yet, so you might want to stick with VSCode or your current IDE unless you really prioritize speed.

TL;DR
Zed is a new, open-source IDE that’s faster than Sublime Text and comes with many powerful features. It's currently in beta and available only for Mac, but Windows and Linux support are on the way.

The Current Issue

VSCode is the go-to editor for many programmers. It's modern, elegant, and packed with features. Built entirely with web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, it’s easily extendable and boasts a vast collection of extensions. However, VSCode has a major drawback: it can be slow.

VSCode uses Electron.js to run on multiple platforms. While Electron is powerful, it can be slow and consume a lot of memory. This has led to the rise of new, faster alternatives. One such alternative gaining traction is Zed.

The New IDE

Zed is developed by the creators of Atom and Tree-sitter. Aiming to surpass VSCode, Zed was recently open-sourced and offers several powerful features:

Incredible Speed
Zed outperforms lightweight editors like Sublime Text and is nearly twice as fast as VSCode. This speed is thanks to two main factors:

1. Zed is built with Rust and uses a new framework called GPUI, which leverages the power of your GPU for great speed and reliability.
2. It employs multithreading with Conflict-Free Replicated Data Types (CRDTs), allowing it to efficiently use multiple cores.

Seamless Collaboration
Zed excels in real-time code collaboration, using CRDTs and an integrated chat interface for an enhanced experience.

Integrated Intelligence
Zed includes built-in support for GitHub Copilot and an assistant powered by ChatGPT-3.5 or GPT-4, enabling you to write and refactor code quickly.

In The Box
Additional features of Zed include:

• Language-awareness with full syntax trees for precise code highlighting, powerful autocompletion, and seamless code navigation.
• A full-featured integrated terminal.
• Vim mode and VSCode style default bindings.
• A variety of themes with customization options coming soon.
• A CLI tool for opening files and projects from the terminal.

Drawbacks

Being in beta, Zed has some current issues:

• Bugs and an unfinished typing experience.
• Only available for Mac, with Windows and Linux support on the way.
• No extension support yet.
• Lacks some VSCode features like built-in source control, debugging, and a file outline.

These issues are common for beta products and should be addressed before the 1.0 release.

Conclusion

Zed stands out with its performance and features, even in its beta stage. It has the potential to become a strong competitor to VSCode as it continues to develop and improve.