Is Zed a Fast, AI-Enabled Alternative to VS Code? | The Code Report

TL;DR

Zed is a promising VS Code alternative for Mac users who value speed, built-in AI, and real-time collaboration, but its lack of plugins remains a major limitation. The open-source editor uses CPU cores and the GPU to deliver 120 frames per second, supports GitHub Copilot and OpenAI, and can refactor selected code. Read on to understand its features, platform restrictions, and potential to compete with VS Code.

Transcript

for nearly 10 years now Microsoft's vs code has been the dominant text editor among the soy deev Community I use it on my Microsoft Windows machine to write Microsoft typescript code with help from the latest AI models in Microsoft co-pilot it installs my Microsoft npm packages pushes my code to Microsoft GitHub and automatically deploys it to Micr... Read More

Key Insights

• 🤗 Zed is an open-source code editor built in Rust by the team behind the Adam editor, emphasizing speed and AI integration.
• 💨 The editor's performance leverage CPU cores and GPU for faster insertion latency, startup time, and lower memory footprint compared to competitors.
• 👨‍💻 Zed's AI integration includes support for GitHub Co-Pilot and OpenAI conversations for code refactoring.
• 🖤 While Zed is clean and fast, it currently lacks extensibility through plugins, which may limit its adoption by some users.
• 👥 The editor's focus on real-time collaboration for teams adds value for group coding projects.
• 😚 Zed's limitation of availability only on Mac OS is a barrier for potential users, with plans to expand to Linux and Windows in the future.
• 👨‍💼 The editor's business model may influence its development and potential reach as a VS Code competitor.

Questions & Answers

Q: Is Zed a good alternative to VS Code?

Zed is an attractive alternative for Mac users seeking a clean, fast, AI-enabled editor. However, it is not presented as a VS Code replacement yet because it lacks plugin extensibility and is only available on macOS.

Q: What makes the Zed code editor fast?

Zed uses all available CPU cores alongside the GPU and renders its entire window through its own GPU framework. This approach delivers 120 frames per second and gives it better insertion latency, startup time, and memory footprint than its competition, according to the video.

Q: What AI features does Zed include?

Zed supports GitHub Copilot and lets users provide an OpenAI API key to discuss their code inside the editor. Users can also select code and ask the AI to refactor it, with the rewritten code appearing directly in the editor.

Q: Do Zed's OpenAI features require a subscription?

The video says users can bring their own OpenAI API key instead of paying for a subscription. They then pay according to the number of tokens they use.

Q: What standard editing features does Zed offer?

Zed includes Vim mode, syntax highlighting, multiple themes, an integrated terminal, and a command palette. Its interface is described as minimal and generally similar to other code editors.

Q: Does Zed support plugins or extensions?

Zed was not extensible at the time covered, so users could not install a plugin when a needed feature was missing. The team planned to release a plugin API, although the video expected its ecosystem to remain smaller than VS Code's JavaScript-based one.

Q: Which operating systems support Zed?

At the time of the video, Zed was available only on macOS. Linux and Windows support was planned, provided the company could first establish a viable business model.

Q: Can teams collaborate in real time with Zed?

Yes, Zed lets multiple people collaborate in real time on the same codebase. The video suggests this team-focused capability could eventually become part of a paid offering, though that was presented only as an expectation.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• Zed is a new, fast code editor designed with high performance and AI integration.

• It offers features like syntax highlighting, integrated terminal, and real-time collaboration for teams.

• Despite its impressive speed and AI capabilities, Zed currently has limitations in extensibility and platform availability.