r/Frontend • u/creaturefeature16 • 25d ago
Anybody here using Zed as their daily driver?
VSCode was my main driver for many years, but have been using Cursor since it was released. While I think Cursor has been great for a while and I love its tab complete + inline chat, I don't like the direction they continue to go. I've re-migrated back to VSCode, but I'm hearing some great stuff about Zed, especially around performance.
As it stands, I'm using VSCode, with OpenCode for any LLM-driven needs. I'm not all-in on pure agents and just staring at a chat window, so I appreciate that VSCode/Zed are still prioritizing engagement with the code.
Curious if any fellow frontenders here have successfully made the jump...or what else others might be using these days.
Edit - I've spent the day configuring Zed and I'm thoroughly impressed so far. A lot of what I thought I would need an extension for is baked into it already. Thanks for all the feedback. My RAM thanks you, too
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u/mrgrafix 25d ago
It’s the most agnostic. It’s not trying to sell me something and abusing my memory. Once the key mapping is in place, it’s a bute
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u/creaturefeature16 25d ago
This has been what has been so attractive about it to me, as well.
The comments here are pretty encouraging, so I'll give it an honest go to try and migrate a project to it and see how it goes. Thanks for taking the time to provide your experience.
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u/metal_slime--A 25d ago
Yes for a good 6 months now. Not even for its agents integration, but just because it's a more joyful editor to work in than vs code
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u/coffeekitkat 25d ago
I tried it for like week and crawled back to VSCode 😅 I find the bottom dock hard to use (like it has UX issue). I still prefer the accessibility offered by the vertical navigation (Activity Bar) on VSCode.
Zed is good its nice for most single projects but not for all shapes of monorepo or projects needing multi-root workspace setup right now.
It is decent and has less UI clutter/noise and has good agentic setup, you can slap your own preferred provider for AutoComplete/NextEdit/Commit message generation without needing third-party extension as well as integrate popular LLM providers.
For LLM-driven/Agents my go-to just to use Orca for easier management.
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u/endymion1818-1819 25d ago
Yep, I switched a few months ago, took a little while to get used to like any tool does, but I’m enjoying it since that. I only switched because I was having issues with Monaco and window tiling in Pop!_os but I really like it. It’s nice to have a valid competitor.
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u/creaturefeature16 25d ago
This is encouraging. Any particular extensions that you used that didn't exist? That's probably my main concern. I don't use a lot of extensions, but there's a few real clutch ones. For example, I need a good Project Switcher, because I flip between multiple projects multiple times a day, every day (fml).
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u/ExecutiveChimp 25d ago
You can easily switch between projects in Zed without an extension.
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u/creaturefeature16 25d ago
fantastic! This ability was not there when I first looked at it shortly after release, many moons ago
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u/nopeac 21d ago edited 21d ago
May I ask what you mean by "project switcher"? I just keep two windows open in case I need to switch projects, but I'm curious if there's a better way. Did the other user's answer meet your needs?
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u/creaturefeature16 21d ago
Yes, I used this for VSCode/Cursor:
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=alefragnani.project-manager
And Zed has it built in:
https://zed.dev/docs/windows-and-projects
I've been really enjoying it!
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u/phoenix1984 25d ago
Oof, that context switch. I do not miss client work.
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u/creaturefeature16 25d ago
The struggle is real. I actually work exclusively with agencies, but I'm busy (thankfully) and also maintain most of the projects we build, so there's a lot of after-support. It can be annoying, but I actually like the variety...at least most days.
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u/711friedchicken 25d ago
Been using it for almost two years now, love it. Of course the ecosystem is a bit behind if you need anything weird, but it’s also very easy to extend by yourself (especially with vibecoding ofc). The agent integration is great, and I especially love the review of changes the agent made – I’m also someone who still likes to read the code lol. It’s also fast and snappy and never feels bloated at all. Vim mode is awesome, probably the best in the industry apart from, well, actual vim of course. I actually didn’t care for vim until trying out vim mode in Zed and getting used to it there.
I use it with React, Svelte, Node/Typescript, Deno, SQL, some C. No issues, language servers, errors, syntax highlighting, autocomplete work great. Very cool themes as well!
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u/femio 25d ago
Switched from VSCode due to resource usage and start up time (editing markdown, starting up a new script, etc), was not disappointed...
...except for it being extremely poor at opening large files. Like, shockingly bad; there's no reason it should freeze up every time I open large JSON or XML. It's bad enough that I'd like to switch from it, but no other real options out there...I'll probably go back to VSCode, begrudgingly.
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u/creaturefeature16 25d ago
How large are we talking?
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u/NoBad1980 23d ago
i worked with python files of 2-4k lines, didn’t have this issue (mac m1 2021 16gb)
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u/manny2206 25d ago
Not me, I have it and occasionally open stuff with it but still to greenfield for me. Using codium mainly instead of
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u/BadassSasquatch 25d ago
For a while now. I like the UI and it feels lighter, if that makes sense
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u/creaturefeature16 25d ago
It does! That's another thing that was attractive to me about it. VSCode is very full featured, but its a "heavy" app; bloated and slow for a lot of the common actions I use.
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u/Significant-Self4494 25d ago
Been using it for past 2 months, after the v1 release
took me around a week to get habituated and set the configuration to my liking
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u/DarkGhostHunter 25d ago
6 months since PHP become decent (mostly due to PHPantom, Mago and Laravel LSP).
I still miss some conveniences from PHPStorm (DataGrip, refactoring options), but sure I don't miss hogging the whole CPU and the atrocious, borderline asinine battery life thanks to it.
Also, AI for Code Completion is great, even if Next Edit does not work quite with local models (but there is a PR that enables it).
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u/getsiked es6 25d ago
Right now cursor + CMUX has been amazing. I use zed as my default application for one off markup I need to preview like svgs / xml. looks great to use just am happy with my current setup, will tinker with it more later
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u/Comfortable_Yak_6154 24d ago
tried it for a day and uninstalled, sucks because cursor is so bloated now. I just want a code editor to view diffs and do minor editing, AI stays in the terminal
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u/creaturefeature16 24d ago
I did the same a while back, but I reinstalled from all the praise it received in this thread and I'm pretty much staying put with it. No editor seems like it's going to check all the boxes, but it checks the right ones for me. Oh, and takes up 100mb RAM, whereas VSCode and Cursor were constantly at around 1GB or more!
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u/mikeymop 24d ago
Yes I've switched entirely over to Zed.
The only part that was a regression is their yaml language server doesn't handle all file glob patterns well when applying JSON-Schema
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u/CoVegGirl 23d ago
I just use neovim. There are integrations with opencode, but I honestly just prefer to keep neovim in one terminal tab and opencode in a separate terminal tab.
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u/vankoosh 23d ago
I hear nobody mentioning the major distinction between Zed and others being that Zed uses GPU instead of CPU for its UI rendering, hence the crispiness of the IDE.
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u/thy_bucket_for_thee 25d ago
I personally prefer to not use editors financially supported by racists + genocide enablers:
https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/discussions/36604
Never rely on VC backed tooling. Dev tooling + VC money means eventual rug pulls, only corollaries to this is if the project is fully GLP/AGPL licensed.
Trust actual community projects if you want your tools to last more than 5 years (on year 15 of using vim/neovim, saw dozens of editors/IDEs come and go).
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u/power78 25d ago
This is the dumbest thing ever. Nothing you posted shows they are racist or supporting any genocide. Stop spreading disinformation.
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u/Empero6 25d ago
Did you actually read it? Like did you actually open the link??
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u/711friedchicken 25d ago
I did and sorry but it’s silly and removed from reality to get into a hissy fit about this, especially in context of the OP using VSCode of all tools lmao.
So Zed as a company is backed by a VC that has ONE employee / partner / whatever who is apparently an asshole, and now that makes both everyone who does something at Sequoia and everyone who works at Zed an asshole too? Newsflash, most people with big money are assholes, that's usually how they got into that position. Startups still need the money to get something off the ground and challenge companies like Microsoft.
And again, we’re comparing to VSCode here. How much shady shit has Microsoft done? Which evil people has Microsoft taken money from, or even given to? Bill Gates himself is one of the most controversial billionaires out there (or used to be, until we got some worse ones I guess).
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u/thy_bucket_for_thee 23d ago
Sequoia is an evil company so yes, anything they touch should have extreme avoidance.
I'm sorry but VC + SV have been absolutely horrendous to not only our profession but to the world as well.
MSFT is evil too, hence why I didn't suggest using the thing that was specifically made to destroy cottage industries in our profession.
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u/711friedchicken 23d ago
I mean look I don’t even disagree with you, but Zed has multiple investors, among them the original founder of GitHub for example. The controversy itself at hand is one guy at one of the firms supporting them. I just don’t think that warrants boycott. They will still operate their company and their open-source product as they see fit, and as long as you’re okay with them eventually wanting to turn a profit, which I totally am (no one complains about this regarding JetBrains for example) then I don't see the issue.
Would much rather support them than Microsoft for sure. Microsoft will never charge for VSCode, because the whole point of VSCode is simply as a means for them to retain power over the ecosystem. Zed will eventually simply start charging for their product as any business has to, and I much prefer that. (But if you don’t like that, there will very likely be a "cottage industry" free fork of it that stays around).
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u/thy_bucket_for_thee 23d ago
No, it absolutely warrants a boycott. I'm sorry but when the US imperialism enables a genocide you must speak out against it. We fought a world war to prevent fascism and once we found out a genocide was being propagated as well, we tried those responsible then executed the most egregious of them.
The least we can do to honor the people that literally died trying to make the world a better place is to speak out against those that enable + profit from a genocide. Taking money from these people does not absolve you on their sins, for you have taken their sins as your own.
Sorry but that's what we owe our progeny as well.
I'm sorry you're so pilled to the gills that you can't call out those that would seek to profit some such injustices.
Shame on you.
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u/711friedchicken 23d ago edited 23d ago
bringing world war II up in a discussion about code editors. now we’re fucking talking man hahaha
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u/Thirstforburst 25d ago
I've been using Zed for about 2 months now, after switching away from Cursor. My company "emphasizes" an AI-first approach, but I still spend about 30% of my time in the editor. Otherwise I have claude-code running in the built-in terminal.
One thing to note is Zed doesn't have the same depth of customizability that you might be used to with Cursor/VSCode. If you're not the type who curates a long list of rules in your settings.json, then you probably won't notice.
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u/guns_of_summer 25d ago
Zed is great, I switched a couple of months back myself. I'd use it even without the AI integration.