Zed on X

Almost all of the praise is about speed and weight: startup and hand edits feel instant, memory use stays low next to VS Code's, the download is small, and it runs without bloat. Developers who switched call Zed their daily driver, like it with vim keybindings, and a few build their own apps and settings pages on GPUI, Zed's Rust UI framework. A reply describing it as a GUI editor that isn't terrible travelled furthest in the section.

Delta, the separate agent app, has its own fans (9 people): they like replying to any agent message, sharing a thread with its full context, and working across attached repos and worktrees, and one calls it a "life changing second brain harness".

The held-back (10) keep VS Code, opencode or WebStorm alongside, or stay while waiting on git and devcontainer fixes and faster folder and worktree switching. The put-off (3) either don't see what Delta adds or dislike AI being pushed into the editor.

Bugs are reported one at a time rather than as a pattern: free-tier edit predictions that disappeared overnight without notice, files from ChatGPT that won't open, ACP output that doesn't look like the same agent elsewhere, a worktree that fails with "Operation not permitted", a login that won't go through, font names invisible in the floating font bar.

The missing-viewers complaint is firmer: no Jupyter notebooks, no .ipynb diff and no built-in PDF viewer, which people say they miss from what other editors offer.

On servers, the worry is lock-in and code control: Delta running only through Zed's own servers, and a verdict that a company which won't let code be stored externally can't use it.

Smaller groups raise git features ("they fumbled the git features"), confusing onboarding and UI details, Chinese text that breaks lines and rendered as boxes in the web version, no Delta for Intel Macs, devcontainer support thin enough to send someone back to VS Code, weak web and PHP support, and GPUI docs developers can't find.

VS Code is the reference point, and the reasons are weight and responsiveness: a VS Code that felt bloated, memory claims of around 20 GB against Zed's, less input lag and cleaner type rendering, a small download, no bloatware. Some have switched outright; others run both, or name the one thing they miss, its git interface. One likes Zed but is going back to VS Code for better devcontainer support.

Beyond that, comparisons are a person or two each. t3code is a primary for some with Zed "on standby", while others say Delta does it better. Dash's price is questioned when Zed is "good enough". Orca draws people for its AI and for carrying on from a phone. JetBrains and WebStorm users still love them but find themselves on Zed more. Single voices mention Neovim switchers, Gram as Zed without the AI, the Suzuri fork with PDF and LaTeX, Sublime, Maestri, opencode for feature work, Amp, and Gitkraken's graph.

The advantage question is the most concrete: a positive Zed user says they don't get the purpose of Delta — what a separate app does that Zed plus a model connected to your files can't — and someone who tried Zed asks what its advantage is.

Two people ask when Zed and Delta will be open source, calling it the moat, and one adds a request for LSP support in Delta. Two ask when agent integrations arrive, with "ACP when?" as the whole question, and Claude Code named alongside it.

Two want recommendations rather than facts: whether anyone actually uses Delta, how they use it, and what their wow moment was. Two ask how it behaves: whether a subthread answer stays visible to the teammate who tagged you, and what happens to synced Claude Code session history after a squash merge.

LaTeX and math rendering is asked for most plainly: people want it in markdown and say it would make Zed the best environment for scientific computing and ML workflows; the last check was that math in markdown still didn't render. Remote running is close behind: Delta on your own servers, NUCs and Mac minis with its UI on a laptop, an API to message it, and one user saying that being pushed onto Zed's remote setup would make them churn.

The rest is individual: Typst equations, pulling Figma's real spacing and color tokens rather than just frame structure, Elixir highlighting as the hurdle to team adoption, an existing Claude Code subscription working inside Delta, Jupyter and a PDF viewer built in, Arabic support asked for repeatedly by one person, Delta as an optional plugin inside Zed, named thread tags, a mobile app, GitLab support in Delta, a real plugin system, and own model keys such as DeepSeek or Z.ai.