What is Zed used for?

Zed is a performance-focused, multiplayer code editor written in Rust by the creators of Atom and Tree-sitter, available on macOS, Linux and Windows. It is a good fit for collaborative coding sessions and fast native editing for developers.

Yes. Zed is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at zed-industries/zed and is written mainly in Rust.

Yes. Zed is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence. Paid plans are also available, starting at $10 per seat per month.

What is Zed an alternative to?

Zed is an open-source alternative to Sublime Text, Cursor, WebStorm and Trae. Other open-source alternatives to Sublime Text include Visual Studio Code, VSCodium and Neovim.

Is Zed actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Zed was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is v1.22.0, published on 30 September 2026. The project has 91k stars on GitHub.

Zed: open-source alternative to Sublime Text, Cursor

About Zed

Zed is a code editor built for speed and for editing together with other people, created by the team behind Atom and Tree-sitter. It is written in Rust and available for macOS, Linux and Windows, with a web version still only under discussion. It is developed by Zed Industries, a for-profit company.

The code is mostly GPL-3.0-or-later, with some Apache-2.0 components that are labeled as such, and the project uses tooling to keep third-party license information correct. Installation is by direct download or through local package managers on each platform, and the repository documents how to build Zed for each operating system.

Zed suits developers who want a fast native editor with collaboration built in and are comfortable with a GPL-licensed codebase. Sponsorship donations through GitHub Sponsors go directly to the company, and contributions are welcome through the guidelines in CONTRIBUTING.md.

Key features

Native code editor written in Rust
Multiplayer editing with collaborators
Available on macOS, Linux and Windows
Built on the GPUI framework
Buildable from source on each platform

Good fit for

→Collaborative coding sessions
→Fast native editing for developers

Built with: Rust
Tags: code-editor; rust; collaboration; text-editor; gpui; developer-tools

Zed: questions and answers

What is Zed used for?: Zed is a performance-focused, multiplayer code editor written in Rust by the creators of Atom and Tree-sitter, available on macOS, Linux and Windows. It is a good fit for collaborative coding sessions and fast native editing for developers.
Is Zed open source?: Yes. Zed is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at zed-industries/zed and is written mainly in Rust.
Is Zed free?: Yes. Zed is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence. Paid plans are also available, starting at $10 per seat per month.
What is Zed an alternative to?: Zed is an open-source alternative to Sublime Text, Cursor, WebStorm and Trae. Other open-source alternatives to Sublime Text include Visual Studio Code, VSCodium and Neovim.
Is Zed actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Zed was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is v1.22.0, published on 30 September 2026. The project has 91k stars on GitHub.