1Your brand here: book this slot2Your brand here: book this slot3Your brand here: book this slot4Your brand here: book this slot5Your brand here: book this slot1Your brand here: book this slot2Your brand here: book this slot3Your brand here: book this slot4Your brand here: book this slot5Your brand here: book this slot
6Your brand here: book this slot7Your brand here: book this slot8Your brand here: book this slot9Your brand here: book this slot10Your brand here: book this slot6Your brand here: book this slot7Your brand here: book this slot8Your brand here: book this slot9Your brand here: book this slot10Your brand here: book this slot
Skip to content
Day 68: new resources are added every day. See what's new
Best Productivity ResourcesBy Shushant LakhyaniVerified creator

Desktop App

Zed

A very fast code editor with built-in collaboration and AI features.

Visit Zed4.6

  • Rating

    4.6 / 5

  • Pricing

    Freemium

  • Difficulty

    Intermediate

  • Works on

    macOS, Windows, Linux

Built with love by Shushant Lakhyani. Building bestproductivityresources.com

Free: 1,100+ ways people make money onlineFree: 399+ ways to make money online

What is Zed?

Zed is a free, open-source code editor built in Rust by the team behind Atom and Tree-sitter. It opens and searches large projects quickly, lets you edit code together with teammates in real time and connects to AI models for edits and chat, so you spend less time waiting on your editor and more time shipping. Optional paid plans add hosted AI usage.

Third-party open-source projects. We are not affiliated with their authors; repositories are provided as-is by their maintainers. Review each project's license, code and security before installing. See our Disclaimer.

Pros: what Zed does well

  • Starts and searches projects very quickly
  • Real-time collaborative editing
  • Free and open source editor

Cons: where it falls short

  • Fewer extensions than VS Code
  • Hosted AI features need a paid plan

Who Zed is for

Developers who want a snappy editor with AI and pairing built in.

Who can skip it

Anyone deeply tied to VS Code extensions.

Zed alternatives

Not sold on Zed? These do a similar job, and each card says what it has in common.

All Workflows resources

Whiteboard

Focus: software design, code review and diagrams. Shares open source and github with Zed. Free (Zed: Freemium). Rated 4.5 (Zed: 4.6).

Desktop AppFreemacOS, Windows
4.5Visit

BrowserCode

Focus: browser sandbox, claude code and codex. Shares ai coding and open source with Zed. A web app, not a desktop app. Free (Zed: Freemium). Adds Web. Rated 4.4 (Zed: 4.6).

Web AppFreeWeb
4.4Visit

Claude Code Game Studios

Focus: claude code, game development and ai agents. Shares open source with Zed. An AI tool, not a desktop app. Free (Zed: Freemium). Rated 4.8 (Zed: 4.6).

AI ToolFreemacOS, Windows
4.8Visit

Bruno

Focus: api client, api testing and postman alternative. Shares open source and github with Zed. Free (Zed: Freemium). Same 4.6 rating.

Desktop AppFreeWindows, macOS
4.6Visit

D2

Focus: diagrams, diagram as code and command line. Shares open source and github with Zed. Free (Zed: Freemium). Adds Offline. Same 4.6 rating.

Desktop AppFreemacOS, Windows
4.6Visit

Pi Desktop

Focus: desktop, electron and rust. Shares ai coding and open source with Zed. Free (Zed: Freemium). Rated 4.5 (Zed: 4.6).

Desktop AppFreemacOS, Windows
4.5Visit

Free alternatives to Zed

Want to spend nothing? These free picks cover similar ground.

snow-cli

Focus: terminal, cli and openai. Shares ai coding and open source with Zed. Free (Zed: Freemium). Rated 4.5 (Zed: 4.6).

Desktop AppFreemacOS, Windows
4.5Visit

Agents Can Communicate

Focus: ai agents, claude code and codex. Shares open source with Zed. A framework, not a desktop app. Free (Zed: Freemium). Rated 4.4 (Zed: 4.6).

FrameworkFreemacOS, Linux
4.4Visit

diffle

Focus: code review, git diff and pull requests. Shares open source and github with Zed. Free (Zed: Freemium). Rated 4.4 (Zed: 4.6).

Desktop AppFreemacOS, Windows
4.4Visit

k10s

Focus: kubernetes, terminal ui and devops. Shares open source and github with Zed. Free (Zed: Freemium). Rated 4.4 (Zed: 4.6).

Desktop AppFreemacOS, Linux
4.4Visit

klaatcode

Focus: terminal, cli and agents. Shares ai coding and open source with Zed. Free (Zed: Freemium). Rated 4.4 (Zed: 4.6).

Desktop AppFreemacOS, Windows
4.4Visit

Mosoo

Focus: agents, gateway and gallery. Shares open source with Zed. An AI tool, not a desktop app. Free (Zed: Freemium). Adds Web. Rated 4.4 (Zed: 4.6).

AI ToolFreeWeb
4.4Visit
Are you the maker of Zed?Get a free Featured badge for your site, a share image and ready-to-paste posts. No sign-up.

New · updated daily

What people are actually doing with AI

Real use cases shared on Reddit, Hacker News, X, GitHub and blogs, summarised in plain words with a link to every original post.

Browse AI use cases

Free Notion database

1,100+ ways people are making money online

Real online businesses, creators and projects, broken down by how they make money: apps, online stores, AI tools and more. Free on Gumroad.

Get the free database

Free Notion database

399+ ways to make money online

Hundreds of online income methods in one place, so you can compare options and pick one to try. Free on Gumroad.

Get the free list

For research and ideas only. Results vary and nothing here is a promise of income. See our Disclaimer.

Weekly newsletter

Everything new, every Monday.

One short email every Monday with everything shipped that week: new free tools and websites, new guides, new free browser tools and what's new in my free Gumroad libraries, plus how the site is growing. Free, and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Join the newsletter

You sign up on Gumroad, which stores your email to send the newsletter. See our Privacy Policy.