Good for / not for
- Developers picking an editor anyway, who would rather have agents native than bolted on.
- Anyone who cares about latency — the editor is written in Rust and speed is its whole pitch.
- Pairs and teams who want real-time collaborative editing without a third-party extension.
- People who want AI in the editor without an API key: 2,000 accepted edit predictions cost nothing.
- Anyone who depends on the VS Code extension ecosystem — Zed has roughly 800 extensions where VS Code has 50,000.
- Work that needs the model to reason across a whole large codebase rather than the files you have open.
- Teams that need SSO or SCIM today; both are planned rather than available.
What it actually does
Zed is an editor you install instead of VS Code, not an extension you add to it. It is written in Rust, and the speed of the thing is the argument for it: typing, scrolling and search are meant to feel immediate on a large project. AI is part of the editor rather than a panel someone bolted on. Edit predictions suggest the change you are probably about to make, and you accept or ignore each one — the free plan counts only the ones you accept, up to 2,000. Beyond that, agents can take on a whole task for you, and Parallel Agents, shipped in April 2026, runs more than one of them at a time. You can point it at your own keys for Anthropic, OpenAI, Ollama, OpenRouter, Bedrock and others, in which case the free plan has no cap at all, or pay for Zed-hosted models. Real-time collaboration is built in: several people edit the same buffer, no extension required. Releases ship weekly across every tier.
Use Zed on the Personal plan and let it suggest edits as you type.
Only predictions you accept come out of the 2,000; ignored suggestions cost nothing. Add your own API key and usage is unlimited on the same free plan.
From the vendor's docsPricing and free-plan limits
Free tier: Personal is $0 forever: 2,000 accepted edit predictions, and no cap at all with your own API keys.
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Personal | Free |
Limits: 2,000 accepted edit predictions; the pricing page states no reset period Only accepted predictions count against the 2,000. Bring your own key and there is no cap. |
| Pro | $10/month |
A two-week free trial adds $20 of credits and unlimited accepted predictions, but excludes the top-tier models (Claude Fable, Claude Opus, GPT Pro). Zed-hosted usage past the included $5 is billed at API list price plus 10%, and you can set a spending cap. |
| Business (per seat) | $30/month |
Priced per seat, per month, with no minimum seat count and no free trial. Order forms are available at 25+ seats. Seats do not bundle a token allowance, and SSO, SAML and SCIM are planned but not currently available. |
Prices checked on Sep 6, 2026 against the vendor's pricing page. Plans change often — confirm before you pay.
Three honest limitations
- Roughly 800 extensions where VS Code has 50,000, so the plugin you rely on may simply not exist yet.
- No codebase indexing: AI context is the current file and your open buffers, not the whole project.
- On the Business plan, SSO, SAML and SCIM are described as planned but are not currently available.
Alternatives
- Cline — Choose Cline instead if you want to keep VS Code and its extensions, and add an agent to the editor you already know.
- OpenCode — Choose OpenCode instead if you want an agent in the terminal, reaching 75+ providers, and no editor migration at all.
- Aider — Choose Aider instead if the thing you want from AI is a reviewable git commit rather than a faster editor.
Getting started in 5 minutes
- Download Zed from zed.dev and open an existing project in it.
- Work normally for a while and accept the edit predictions that are right — only accepted ones count against the free 2,000.
- Add your own API key (Anthropic, OpenAI, Ollama, OpenRouter and others are supported) to remove the cap.
- If you want Zed-hosted models instead, start the two-week Pro trial and its $20 of credits.
- Keep VS Code installed until you know which of your extensions have no Zed equivalent.
Zed questions
- Is Zed free?
- The editor is free forever on the Personal plan, which includes 2,000 accepted edit predictions. With your own API keys there is no usage cap. Pro is $10 per month.
- What is an "accepted edit prediction"?
- Zed suggests the edit it thinks you are about to make. Only the suggestions you accept are counted, so ignoring one costs nothing against your 2,000.
- What does the $10 Pro plan include?
- Unlimited edit predictions and $5 of Zed-hosted model tokens. Beyond that you are billed at API list price plus 10%, and you can set a spending cap.
- Can I use Zed with my own models?
- Yes. Amazon Bedrock, Anthropic, DeepSeek, Google AI, GitHub Copilot, LM Studio, Mistral, Ollama, OpenAI, OpenRouter and Vercel are supported, and BYOK usage is unlimited on the free plan.
- Should I switch from VS Code?
- Only if speed and native agents matter more than extensions. Zed has around 800 extensions where VS Code has 50,000, and it reads your open files rather than indexing the codebase.
Related reading
- Who Trains on Your Code? Copilot, Cursor, Claude, ChatGPT Compared
Zed’s built-in agents route through providers you choose; the retention and training terms in this comparison are the ones to check first.
Sources
- Zed pricing (Personal, Pro, Business; trial and overage terms)
- GitHub repository (89,864 stars, v1.18.1 on 2026-09-04)
- Zed raises $32M Series B led by Sequoia (2025-08-20)
- Zed editor review 2026 — extensions and AI context
- Source code: GPL-3.0 and AGPL-3.0 in part, Apache-2.0 elsewhere
Research-compiled, not hands-on tested. Compiled from official docs, the vendor's pricing page and community reviews as of Sep 6, 2026. We haven't tested it hands-on yet.