And I'm not luddite swearing by vi or something, I use VSCode and Idea, and have used Sublime for many years, Xcode on/off for some Obj-C/Swift dev, Eclipse for 5-6 years in the 2000s, and vim for everything cli/lightweight since forever.
Is the GUI tech what's supposed to be novel? I couldn't care less about that backend in my everyday editor use as long as the editor is fast enough. Which on modern hardware, even Idea is.
Don't get me wrong, it's a good editor still.
The perception of 'fast' is very subjective. To me having a smooth, jitter-free UI, low input latency, and instant startup, all matter a lot.
On the topic of vim, the built-in vim mode in zed is really good. The helix mode is great too!!
I'd like to BETTER use my RAM, and have faster programs to boot (as programs who overuse RAM also are slower than more optimized ones).
(I’m probably off on how much memory it takes to run a small LLM, but still.)
Actually it pulls latest versions (checking registry then installing that exact version, not sure why they sidestep normal resolution algorithms) no matter what .npmrc may say, so min-release-age breaks almost everywhere it integrates with JS/TS ecosystem (most visibly, Copilot). I probably should’ve filed an issue.
It also installs Go packages but I haven’t looked into that.
> https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/7054
> https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/12589
> TL;DR: Mix of language tooling, unsigned proprietary blobs, corrupted and/or GLIBC-dependent files, redundant copies of already-installed executables. The Node packages especially are able to run scripts on install. Personal preference aside, might also create issues with security laws, certifications. All without user consent.
> Issues opened in January and June 2024. They've been rejected, closed, and opened a couple times since then. No changes directly improving this yet as of April 2026.
So... If you want broad language support via LSP servers, then you're going to have to bring in other ecosystems, and Node/Typescript is a big one that doesn't always have alternatives. [0] That's not a Zed-specific problem.
IMO the real issue with Zed is the "runs them by default without asking" part. Plus the questionable practices with binary blobs and the cavalier attitude in the discussions, when I can just use an editor that... Doesn't do any of that.
[0] https://microsoft.github.io/language-server-protocol/impleme...
