Tried Zed for a few days — here’s what actually stood out

Zed is a fast, minimal code editor built in Rust. The same team behind Atom and Tree-sitter made it. It’s designed for speed and working with both humans and AI.

A few things that stood out:

• It’s really fast. Opening projects and switching files feels almost instant.
• You can run AI agents right inside the editor.
• It has real collaboration features if you’re coding with someone else.
• You can import settings from VS Code or Cursor.
• On the free plan you can still connect your own models. I used OpenRouter and it worked fine.
• You can try Pro for 14 days without adding a credit card.
• They actually collaborated with Anthropic early on when building the AI features.

One small tip: the folder panel is on the right by default. If you prefer it on the left like VS Code, you can move it. Guide is here:
https://zed.dev/blog/new-panel-system

Overall it feels clean and light. If you’re looking for something faster and simpler than the usual options, it’s worth a try.