Rust-fast editor. Native AI. No electron tax.
If you've been living under a rock, Zed is the editor built by the people who made Atom — except this time it's Rust, native, GPU-rendered, and stupidly fast. The AI panel just hit feature parity with Cursor, and I'm genuinely tempted to switch.
The Setup
Zed's AI is configured in a single keymap-friendly settings file. Pick your provider, pick your model, set your system prompt, done. No extension marketplace, no plugin install — it ships in the binary.
{
"assistant": {
"default_model": {
"provider": "anthropic",
"model": "claude-sonnet-4"
},
"version": "2",
"inline_alternatives": [
{ "provider": "anthropic", "model": "claude-haiku-4" }
]
},
"language_models": {
"anthropic": {
"version": "1",
"api_url": "https://api.anthropic.com"
},
"ollama": {
"api_url": "http://localhost:11434"
}
},
"features": {
"edit_prediction_provider": "zed"
}
}The Money Pattern
The killer combo is Zed's built-in collab plus the AI panel. You can share an editor session with another dev, and the AI sees the shared context. I tested this with Elijah on a Pipedrive integration — we both prompted the same agent from our own machines, and the edits streamed live to both editors. It's the closest thing to Google Docs for coding I've ever used.
Edit prediction is also clean. Zed's own model predicts your next edit, not just your next token. Hit tab and it skips your cursor to where you were probably going anyway. Once you feel it, going back to plain autocomplete is rough.
The Catch
The extension ecosystem is tiny next to VS Code. If you rely on a niche language server or a specific debugger, double-check before switching. The basics are great — TypeScript, Rust, Python, Astro — but the long tail isn't there yet.
The agent mode also lags Cline and Cascade for autonomous multi-file work. Zed's AI is best as an inline assistant and chat, not a full agent.
The Verdict
Zed is the editor I keep almost-switching to. The speed alone is addictive on an M4 Mac — files open instantly, scrolling is buttery, search is ridiculous. If your daily stack is web + Rust + Python and you don't lean on obscure extensions, this is a serious Cursor alternative. The future of coding editors is native, and Zed got there first.