
Zed
High-performance multiplayer code editor
The Lens
By Erik Loyd, SaaS CEO and former COO/CFO of an AWS Premier Partner.
Updated Oct 2026
Zed is a code editor written in Rust and drawn on the GPU by the people who made Atom. No Electron, and you feel it: files open instantly. Multiplayer editing is built in, agents like Claude Agent and Codex run inside it, on macOS, Windows or Linux. GPL-3.0, free, no account needed.
Zed hit 1.0 in April 2026. Install is a download with nothing to host, and with your own Anthropic, OpenAI, Ollama or Copilot credentials the AI costs you nothing extra from Zed.
The paywall is hosted AI. Free gets no Zed-hosted models and none of Zed's own edit predictions (its AI tab-completion). Pro is $10/month for unlimited predictions plus $5 of tokens, then API list price +10%. Business is $30 per seat per month for org-wide AI policies, with no AI credit included. Solo and small teams: free. Larger teams: Business, minus SSO, SAML and SCIM, which aren't shipped yet.
The catch: ecosystem and agent security. Around a thousand extensions is a fraction of VS Code's, so check your language server and debugger exist. Zed also patched several high-severity bugs where an AI agent or a booby-trapped repo could run commands on your machine. Stay updated.
Free vs Self-Hosted vs Paid
freemiumFree: The Personal plan is $0 forever: the full GPL editor, multiplayer collaboration, and unlimited AI use with your own API keys (Amazon Bedrock, Anthropic, GitHub Copilot, DeepSeek, Google AI, LM Studio, Mistral, Ollama, OpenAI, OpenRouter, Vercel and more) or external agents like Claude Agent and Codex CLI. Free does not include Zed-hosted models or Zed's Zeta edit predictions; use GitHub Copilot or a local model for predictions instead. Verified university students get a free Student plan for one year with unlimited edit predictions and $10/month of token credit (the top Claude and GPT models excluded).
Self-hosted: Nothing to host. Zed is a desktop app for macOS, Windows and Linux, with source under GPL-3.0-or-later plus Apache-2.0 components. Client telemetry (usage metrics and crash reports) is on by default and can be switched off in settings; hosted AI and collaboration send server-side telemetry that you can't disable while using them.
Paid: Pro is $10/month with unlimited edit predictions and $5 of hosted-model tokens included each month; usage beyond that is billed at API list price +10%, charged at month end or every $10. The default extra spend limit is $10 (set it to $0 to cap the bill at exactly $10/month). A 14-day Pro trial includes $5 of GPT-6 Luna usage, no card required. Business is $30 per seat per month, self-serve, month-to-month, no seat minimum, with order forms at 25+ seats: org-wide AI model policies, data governance controls, unified spend visibility, unlimited edit predictions and role-based access controls. Business seats include no AI credit; hosted usage bills at standard rates or you route it through your own provider contracts. SSO, SAML and SCIM are planned but not available.
The editor and bring-your-own-key AI are free forever. Pro at $10/month buys Zed's hosted models and edit predictions with $5 of tokens, then list price +10%; Business is $30 per seat per month for admin controls, with no SSO yet.
What to do by team size
- Solo
- free with your own API keys; Pro at $10/month if you want hosted models and Zed's edit predictions
- Small team
- free; multiplayer editing is included and each dev brings their own keys or Pro
- Medium team
- Business at $30 per seat per month for org-wide AI policies and one bill
- Large team
- Business with an order form at 25+ seats, but SSO, SAML and SCIM aren't shipped yet
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Trust Signals
License: GPL-3.0-or-later (some crates Apache-2.0)
Editor is GPL-3.0-or-later; GPUI and other crates are Apache-2.0.
Commercial use: ✗ Restricted
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