Cloud Parts

Zed

A code editor written from scratch in Rust by the team behind Atom, drawn on the GPU, with its own agent and the Agent Client Protocol for outside ones.

What it is
Editors and terminals (code editors),AI coding agents
Type
Open source
Made by
Zed Industries
License
GPL 3 (editor), AGPL 3 (server components), Apache 2.0 (GPUI)
Facts checked
9 October 2026
Website Source code

What it is

Zed comes from the people who built Atom, the editor whose Chromium fork grew into Electron, the framework VS Code runs on. Instead of building on web technology again, they wrote Zed in Rust with their own UI framework, GPUI, which organises the whole app around feeding data to GPU shaders, like a video game. It reached 1.0 on April 29, 2026, after five years and more than a million lines of code, and runs on macOS, Linux (since July 2024) and Windows (since October 2025, drawing with DirectX 11).

Language support comes through LSP (for Python it uses basedpyright and Ruff by default) and debugging through DAP. Extensions are WebAssembly components with sandboxed file access through WASI. Remote development runs a headless Zed server over SSH or WSL, so language servers, terminals and tasks run on the remote machine while the UI and syntax parsing stay local.

The Agent Panel runs Zed’s own agent or external agents, such as Claude Agent, Codex, OpenCode and Gemini CLI, through the Agent Client Protocol (ACP), which Zed created in August 2025 and released under Apache 2.0. Third-party agents run as their own processes and talk to their own providers, so their traffic doesn’t pass through Zed’s servers.

Why teams pick it

  • Native speed: Rust and GPU rendering instead of a browser engine
  • Open source end to end, its AI features included, under GPL 3
  • Hosts any ACP agent, installable from the ACP Registry, alongside its own agent and edit predictions
  • Built for collaboration: shared channels for real-time editing, and DeltaDB in development to track every edit by humans and agents

Watch out for

  • Its extensions are Zed-specific WebAssembly components, so the VS Code extension catalogue doesn’t carry over
  • A younger platform: Windows support arrived only in October 2025, and 1.0 in April 2026
  • Zed-hosted AI is a paid plan (Zed Pro); the alternatives are your own API keys or an external agent

Alternatives

What all code editors have in common →
Visual Studio CodeOpen sourceMicrosoft’s free, extensible editor and the most used one by far, built on the MIT-licensed Code - OSS project that Cursor, Windsurf and Void forked.+3 Cursor, Void, Windsurf (now Devin Desktop)

How it fits with other technologies

settings.json: swap the Python language server and add a custom ACP agent · json

{
  "languages": {
    "Python": {
      "language_servers": ["ty", "!basedpyright", "..."]
    }
  },
  "agent_servers": {
    "my-agent": {
      "type": "custom",
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["~/projects/agent/index.js", "--acp"],
      "env": {}
    }
  }
}

See it in a real stack

No architecture uses Zed yet. Drop it into the playground and wire it up yourself.Open playground →
Where it came from2024–2026

Nathan Sobo, Max Brunsfeld and Antonio Scandurra worked together on Atom at GitHub. Sobo’s goal had always been a minimal editor that feels like a text editor but has an IDE’s power when needed, without the slowness. Atom fell short, in Sobo’s view because of its technical choices: built on web technology, it could never be better than the platform underneath. Brunsfeld also created Tree-sitter, the incremental parser many editors now use.

With Zed they started over in Rust, which hadn’t existed when Atom began, and built GPUI, their own GPU-driven UI framework. In January 2024 they open-sourced the editor under the GPL, its server components under the AGPL and GPUI under Apache 2.0, planning to sell services such as collaboration and hosted AI rather than the editor. Linux followed in July 2024 and Windows in October 2025.

AI arrived as part of the core: an Agent Panel in May 2025, a debugger built on DAP in June 2025, and in August 2025 the Agent Client Protocol, designed with Google around Gemini CLI so that any agent can plug into any editor. The same month Sequoia led a $32 million Series B to fund DeltaDB, an operation-based version control system for humans and agents working on the same code. Zed declared 1.0 on April 29, 2026.

Why it’s built this way

Rust and a GPU UI framework of its own
Atom taught the team that an editor can’t be better than the platform it is built on. Owning every layer, down to shaders and OS graphics calls, let them aim for performance a web-based editor can’t reach.
Open source, with paid services
The team wanted the widest pool of contributors and preferred to sell services that integrate with the editor, such as collaboration and hosted AI, over selling a proprietary editor; it promised never to show ads in the editor.
A protocol for agents (ACP)
Just as LSP unbundled language intelligence from monolithic IDEs, ACP lets developers switch agents without switching editors, and lets agent builders get a good editor UI without forking VS Code.
Track every edit, not just commits
Zed sees collaboration, with people and now with agents, as a continuous conversation. DeltaDB records changes at character level so discussions stay linked to the code as it evolves.

Timeline

  1. 2024

    Open-sourced in January: GPL editor, AGPL server, Apache 2.0 GPUI

  2. 2024

    Linux release in July

  3. 2025

    Agent Panel in May; built-in debugger in June

  4. 2025

    Agent Client Protocol and a $32M Series B led by Sequoia in August

  5. 2025

    Windows release in October

  6. 2026

    Zed 1.0 on April 29, with Zed for Business

Sources13 · facts checked 9 October 2026

Improve this page on GitHub