Are people really happy with zed or is this the vocal minority we see on HN?
I have tried zed multiple times and always uninstalled it after a few days because of the ugly font rendering, slow response time (!), high memory usage (!!) and being very buggy in general. And don't even get me started on their AI-first shenanigans.
This is on Linux, maybe it works better on other platforms.
I haven't had this experience (on macOS, it is quite fast), but I have read this exact same complaint about rendering/slowness from other Linux users a handful of times. So I think those might be more platform-specific issues. I do see high memory usage, though. So I enjoy using Zed when I want to use AI, and prefer Sublime when I want to fly solo.
To me it's just a Sublime with AI. Except Sublime doesn't eat my RAM.
Very fast but not enough features to use on a daily basis.
And they lack some extensions I love in VSCode such as Markdown All In One and GitLens. They have a big battle against the large ecosystem of VSCode extensions.
And then there's JetBrains which is on another level of refactoring/features.
I agree there are really noticeable issues on Linux. For example, closing file windows is shockingly slow. I'm talking like 500ms+ to close on a high end Ubuntu machine.
The macOS version is where they've invested the most optimizations for sure. None of the issues you've described occur on there. Fwiw, I've been daily driving the editor on my mac for about a year with almost no complaints.
I am not sure I have the same definition of “love my editor again” (from their landing page) as the Zed team… my definition is PG. I don’t see a reason that I need to be 18 to use a code editor.
>ARBITRATION NOTICE. Except for certain kinds of disputes described in Section 15.2 (Dispute Resolution and Arbitration), you agree that disputes arising under these Terms will be resolved by binding, individual arbitration, and BY ACCEPTING THESE TERMS, YOU AND ZED ARE EACH WAIVING THE RIGHT TO A TRIAL BY JURY OR TO PARTICIPATE IN ANY CLASS ACTION OR REPRESENTATIVE PROCEEDING. ALTERNATIVELY, CUSTOMER MAY OPT OUT OF ARBITRATION PER SECTION 15.2(a).
They did send out a follow-up email about this earlier this week:
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Our email yesterday was imprecise relative to our actual new Terms. To be specific:
- You must be at least 18 years old to use the Service (Zed’s AI-enabled software-as-a-service offering, including features like account creation/sign in, Zed Free and Zed Pro, and collaboration). See https://zed.dev/terms#21-eligibility. We set the threshold at 18 due to children's data privacy obligations under COPPA, equivalent international frameworks, and an increasing number of state and regional laws that extend protections to anyone under 18. Those regulations require parental consent verification, age-gated data handling, and separate retention policies for minors. Building and maintaining that infrastructure is a real cost for a small team, and getting it wrong carries regulatory risk. Setting the line at 18 lets us maintain a single privacy framework for all account holders without carve-outs.
- Zed's Software (open source code editing software) is governed by our open source licenses. In cases where the open source license can govern, it will over the Terms. See https://zed.dev/terms#24-restrictions.
If you have questions, reply to this email or reach us at legal@zed.dev.
Tried Zed, never could get into Zed, I found it too slow and cludgy. These days I use Tabby, Neovim, with Lazyvim, and the Victor Mono Nerd Font. It works well enough for me. I have yet to explore connecting it to Claude, that might be an interesting thing. I don't think I'm ever going to be ok with age restrictions within an IDE.
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[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 44.3 ms ] threadI have tried zed multiple times and always uninstalled it after a few days because of the ugly font rendering, slow response time (!), high memory usage (!!) and being very buggy in general. And don't even get me started on their AI-first shenanigans.
This is on Linux, maybe it works better on other platforms.
Very fast but not enough features to use on a daily basis.
And they lack some extensions I love in VSCode such as Markdown All In One and GitLens. They have a big battle against the large ecosystem of VSCode extensions.
And then there's JetBrains which is on another level of refactoring/features.
The macOS version is where they've invested the most optimizations for sure. None of the issues you've described occur on there. Fwiw, I've been daily driving the editor on my mac for about a year with almost no complaints.
"Customer must be at least 18 years old to use the Service"
this pretty clearly refers to the subscription service and not to the 'downloadable software' or source code
That's gonna be a no from me, dawg.
---
Our email yesterday was imprecise relative to our actual new Terms. To be specific:
- You must be at least 18 years old to use the Service (Zed’s AI-enabled software-as-a-service offering, including features like account creation/sign in, Zed Free and Zed Pro, and collaboration). See https://zed.dev/terms#21-eligibility. We set the threshold at 18 due to children's data privacy obligations under COPPA, equivalent international frameworks, and an increasing number of state and regional laws that extend protections to anyone under 18. Those regulations require parental consent verification, age-gated data handling, and separate retention policies for minors. Building and maintaining that infrastructure is a real cost for a small team, and getting it wrong carries regulatory risk. Setting the line at 18 lets us maintain a single privacy framework for all account holders without carve-outs.
- Zed's Software (open source code editing software) is governed by our open source licenses. In cases where the open source license can govern, it will over the Terms. See https://zed.dev/terms#24-restrictions.
If you have questions, reply to this email or reach us at legal@zed.dev.
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