Zed

Zed is a high-performance, open-source code editor crafted for speed and collaboration with humans and AI. Developed by Zed Industries (formerly part of GitHub's Atom team), it is written entirely in Rust and leverages GPU acceleration and multi-core processing to deliver near-instantaneous responsiveness, even in large codebases.

Available at zed.dev and open source on GitHub, Zed supports macOS, Linux, and Windows. It features a GPUI (GPU User Interface) framework for hardware-accelerated rendering, making it one of the fastest code editors available.

• GPU-Accelerated Rendering - GPUI framework renders everything on the GPU for smooth scrolling, animations, and syntax highlighting.
• Parallel AI Agents - Run multiple AI agents simultaneously for code completion, refactoring, and analysis without blocking the UI.
• Real-Time Collaboration - Share projects, edit together, chat, and screen share with teammates in real-time.
• Multi-Core Architecture - Every language server, AI request, and build task runs on its own core for maximum parallelism.
• Built-in Terminal - Integrated terminal with multiplexer support and seamless shell integration.
• LSP Integration - Full Language Server Protocol support with automatic language detection and server management.

Zed's AI features are deeply integrated into the editor architecture. The AI system runs agents in parallel background threads, allowing code completion suggestions, inline refactoring, and documentation generation to happen without ever blocking the editor's UI. The editor uses its own agent protocol to communicate with AI models, supporting multiple providers.

Zed's AI assistant can edit files, navigate code, and run terminal commands at native speed. The assistant is context-aware, understanding the project structure, open files, and recent edits to provide relevant suggestions. Zed supports inline AI features like code completion, explanation, refactoring, and test generation, all triggered through keyboard shortcuts or the command palette.

Zed's performance philosophy starts at the systems level. The editor uses a multi-threaded architecture where file parsing, syntax highlighting, git operations, and AI inference each run on dedicated threads. The GPUI rendering framework uses the GPU for all drawing operations — text rendering, scrolling, animations, and compositing — achieving 60+ FPS on every interaction.

Startup time is under a second even with large projects, thanks to lazy loading and incremental file indexing. Zed's file watcher uses platform-native APIs for instant change detection, and its search engine is built on a custom incremental indexing system that returns results as you type.

Zed includes built-in real-time collaboration features that rival dedicated pair-programming tools. Team members can share projects, edit files simultaneously, communicate via in-editor chat or voice, and share their screen. The collaboration layer is built on a custom protocol that syncs editor state efficiently, even over high-latency connections.

Shared projects support per-user cursors, simultaneous editing with conflict resolution, and shared terminals. Team settings, snippets, and configurations can be synchronized across a Zed team workspace. Collaboration is free for open-source projects and included in paid plans for private team workspaces.

Zed is available for macOS, Linux, and Windows. Download from zed.dev/download or install via package managers:

# macOS
brew install --cask zed

# Linux (varies by distro)
curl -fSL https://zed.dev/install.sh | sh

# Windows
# Download installer from zed.dev/download

Zed can also be built from source from the GitHub repository using Rust's Cargo build system.