Exploring Zed Editor: Rust-Powered Speed and AI Integration for Modern Development

Ryan provides an in-depth exploration of the Zed editor, which has been climbing the OpenRouter popularity rankings among AI-enabled development tools. The episode begins with Ryan explaining how he discovered Zed through OpenRouter's app rankings and his motivation to find faster alternatives to VS Code and Cursor. He demonstrates Zed's key selling points: exceptional speed due to its Rust foundation and integration with the Alacritty terminal emulator, which provides 120Hz refresh rates and GPU acceleration for notably responsive performance. The discussion covers Zed's comprehensive AI integration options, including native support for GitHub Copilot, OpenRouter model access, and local AI models through Ollama and LM Studio - making it particularly useful when running out of Claude Code credits or working offline. Ryan explores the collaborative features, noting both the ease of real-time code sharing and concerns about privacy with public room visibility. The episode also addresses Zed's lineage from the Atom editor team, licensing complexity with GNU Affero v3, and current limitations in language server support. Despite being in early development, Ryan positions Zed as a compelling option for developers prioritizing speed, especially those working in Rust, Python, or JavaScript ecosystems, while acknowledging it may not yet match the extensive extension ecosystem of more mature editors.