7 ms·

I generally like what Zed is trying to become. However, all of these features and blog posts are frustraing when they struggle to keep basic editor features sta

I generally like what Zed is trying to become. However, all of these features and blog posts are frustraing when they struggle to keep basic editor features stable. Edit a file outside of the editor? It's not going to show up in the project pane or the git diff. Need to work inside a container because it's 2025 and we don't need to clutter our local machine with 100s of dependencies and env managers... well now all the AI stuff is broken. ACP sounds cool until you realize every single CLI in existence works better. My wish is that Zed gets the core working correctly 100% of the time before moving on to expanding feature sets. For now I'm back in NeoVIM because it always works the first time.... https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/38109 https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/38109 Hopefully soon I can give it another shot at full time usage.

johntash 10mo ago
For me, I was happy using Zed until suddenly an update caused it to crash every time I opened it. It was caused by some sort of issue with graphics drivers on linux I guess. I just checked the issue [1] and it is fixed now, but it's crazy to me that I never really thought of my text editor needing to use my graphics card for rendering. [1]: https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/37448 https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/37448
gonational 10mo ago
This, 100%. So many of the basic features (e.g., automatic Python venv, Pyright running, etc.) have random bugs that pop up from time to time, making the basic editor unreliable. My fear is, if they keep going in this direction (adding bloat without fixing basic functionality), they'll be a perfect fit for Microsoft acquisition, at which point I'll have to switch careers, because there isn't any other editor out there that I like.
lvl155 10mo ago
I agree with you 100%. If basic functionalities are not airtight, there’s no way I am going to deal with growing pains just because they want to get paid on AI fluffs. Contrast this with something like Ghostty.
mystifyingpoi 10mo ago
How does Neovim handle outside changes then? Or is there a plugin to make it work? AFAIK it doesn't reload any bufferes when files change. IntelliJ is the only other one I know that does it transparently.
- vmiklos 10mo ago
  Plain vim asks what to do by default. A single 'l' does a reload.
- BinaryPie 10mo ago
  In vanilla neovim you can use autoread... this does depend on a focus event like entering and leaving the pane or switching buffers. However, for my workflow which is "go to a different terminal pane and do some things then switch back" as soon as I focus the buffer it updates. Where as with Zed it'll just keep showing the old content and in fact closing and opening file wont even change what it shows in Zed. It's really really annoying. I have to exit zed and open it again. This means if you are working with AI agents you end up having to do this often.
  - rorychatt 10mo ago
    Very strange, this has always worked for me with Zed - both with local and remote ssh sessions. I use `"autosave": "on_focus_change"` which may be keeping my buffer in sync with the file contents as I switch between terminal and zed.
- lawn 10mo ago
  You can configure Neovim to either auto reload or to ask you whenever a file is changed. (Can't remember which one is the default, probably to ask.)
  - mystifyingpoi 10mo ago
    Thanks, just found something about that.
  - OkayPhysicist 10mo ago
yobert 10mo ago
My experience has been so different. Zed seems to always do the right thing for me when I concurrently edit files with other tools. Not doubting your experience or anything, but you must have a very different environment than me. Zed has been absolutely rock solid for the past year on my computer.
jchw 10mo ago
I am not getting tons of issues with Zed going out of sync all the time. I wonder if the issue is it silently having issues watching the filesystem due to open fd limits. I've noticed that not only does it sync but it even will recognize if I rename the folder a workspace is in. But then, I've run into a couple of strange issues that tell me there is more polish needed: - Sometimes upon using LSP refactor, it seems like if a bunch of files get renamed, the open buffers will get screwed up somehow. Like, I'll hit save and it will write to the old filename! It's not actually a huge problem, as I can close the buffers, delete whatever excess files I accidentally create, and re-open them without error, but it is confusing as hell. - I have indeed had issues with the file view not always updating when files are added externally, however it is not constantly. I usually just reload workspace when this happens. It is a minor frustration, but I had many minor recurring frustrations with both VS Code and Neovim before too, so I don't consider it a deal breaker.
iknowstuff 10mo ago
Oh yeah I’ve noticed both the desync and AI not working via ssh. Also buggy git support, I selected a few things but it committed everything and made me think I lost it all. But I love Zed when it works. Literally 5h more M4 battery life vs Cursor.
gryn 10mo ago
yup, my pet peeve is there is no way to disable line wrap. the setting that exist doesn't work and there's no way to actually disable it instead of just increasing the max characters (with set hard limit in the source code). have a big docs or log,data file where you don't care for the rest of the line ? well too bad better have a spare editor. this feel to me like it should should be a number #1 priority. "an editor need to nail the editing part". https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/discussions/26344 https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/discussions/26344 on the positive side I do like that you can in-place edit the result of global search.
- Aeolun 10mo ago
  Huh? That doesn’t track with my experience. I spent a long time trying to find out how to enable line wrap, and Zed’s settings are more extensive than most editors.
rsolva 10mo ago
Yeah, I have been fighting Zed to get agents to use podman on my host, but Flatpak is sandboxed and makes it almost impossible. The ideal solution would be that Zed could use podman or docker to spin up a container where agents could run free!
- maxbrunsfeld 10mo ago
  Agreed, we should support this!
  - adastra22 10mo ago
    It’s not just a nice to have. It’s a hard requirement. If I can’t launch agents within a sandboxed container, I can’t use your product - by security policy.
tecoholic 10mo ago
With the AI stuff, it feels like they invested a bit prematurely. When the Agentic editing demo came out (6 months, 10 months ago? It’s a blur), it felt right. Accepting and reviewing edits, live tracking ..etc., felt like pair programming. The ACP addition felt like a natural evolution . With the continuous improvement in CLI tools and people’s experience with them, it feels like doing a live review or edit-by-edit approvals all feel like a drag. I personally have come to avoid using the IDE/Editor. I just kick up Claude code - plan mode, auto-accept edits. Once the session is done, switch to the editor and make necessary adjustments. I suspect people with Max subscription and “dangerously-skip-permissions” …etc won’t even care if an editor has AI integration or not.
- girvo 10mo ago
  The only editor integration I think is semi useful is wiring it into Diagnostics/Problems data that the editor has from extensions. Speeds up the agents flow quite a bit when it leans on that to check its work vs always executing (say) “eslint” directly. But that can be done easily enough with an MCP extension for your editor/IDE of choice
  - adastra22 10mo ago
    Claude hooks are great for this.
- giancarlostoro 10mo ago
  I used to only use JetBrains for AI stuff, now I just open everything in Zed because of its Claude Code integration. Especially with the linters and other nice to haves. I am insanely close to cancelling JetBrains.
  - hboon 10mo ago
    JetBrains products has Claude Code integration. Is it worse? I still use Claude Code in cli, as a WebStorm user.
    - 10mo ago
maxbrunsfeld 10mo ago
Curious about the failure to detect FS changes made outside of Zed. Are you on Linux?
- rsolva 10mo ago
  I have observed this too, mostly for content that is changed in a symlinked directory, but also generally. I'm on Fedora Silverblue running Zed Preview as a Flatpak. It works great in most other ways though, snappy and beautiful, but the sandboxed environment provides some additional challenges.
85392_school 10mo ago
The thing about "basic" here is that it's subjective. It could be that these issues only happen on your machine or that the staff (or even most people) don't need what you're asking for. Of course they should try to fix them anyway, but their backlog is enormous.
recroad 10mo ago
Agreed. I hear way too much about Zed considering the editor doesn't allow a window to be popped onto a second monitor.
- zie 10mo ago
  On MacOS 10.15, I have 2 monitors plus the built in on a macbook pro, and I have Zed windows on all 3 of them all the time.
  - recroad 10mo ago
    You have to open three Zed instances, don't you?
    - zie 10mo ago
      nope. Single zed app instance.
    - foldr 10mo ago
      No, this works fine with a single Zed instance.
      - recroad 10mo ago
        I stand corrected.
girvo 10mo ago
I know this is silly but the biggest thing that’s driving me away from it is how god awfully blurry it looks on my 1440p screen :/
- phcreery 10mo ago
  This is also a big issue for me and has one of the largets issues for a while. [1] I wish there was font hinting to the like of windows font rendering. [1] https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/7992 https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/7992
- chrisweekly 10mo ago
  That's not silly! Great UX is table stakes.
- NewsaHackO 10mo ago
  I don't have this problem, but issues like this are always a huge barrier, especially when you want users from a polished code editor like VSCode. Personally, I use it because VSCodium does not support the default Python LSP on my Linux box. I like it, but there are definitely areas that seem rough around the edges. My biggest issue is the size of the font and icons. I use a 4K screen, and while the font is readable, the icons are so tiny that I can barely see them. Since it is a new system, I don't just know where they are like I would if it were VSCode.
  - twelvedogs 10mo ago
    Yeah same, plus I have poor eyesight so I have to zoom then to click anything
- jokethrowaway 10mo ago
  Try the latest version, it should be better Personally, I never registered that as a problem, but I can see the delta in screenshots between versions.
  - girvo 10mo ago
easygenes 10mo ago
It says they're targeting Spring 2026 for their 1.0 release, so I'll treat as beta and put a calendar entry in for April 2026 to check back in on it.
dbacar 10mo ago
What I like in zed (pretty new to me) is that I dont have to deal with vim/neovim plugings to make the basic stuff work. Zed workds out of the box(for rust).
rounce 10mo ago
> Need to work inside a container because it's 2025 and we don't need to clutter our local machine with 100s of dependencies and env managers... “Can I tell you about our lord and saviour Nix?” Kidding, but seriously though I’ve found having to work in a container to be a bit clumsy, even with good tooling around it. As you said it’s 2025, and there are other ways to have reproducible toolchains that don’t pollute the rest of your system environment Nix or otherwise.
- adastra22 10mo ago
  In the case of AI tools it is for security reasons, not just reproducible toolchains.
  - viraptor 10mo ago
    We need more selinux and sandbox-exec in daily dev lives. There's no reason to bring a whole new system along just to restrict some access.
    - adastra22 10mo ago
      Docker is just a shim on kernel isolation APIs. It’s not any different, but better packaged. But irrelevant in this case. I dev on macOS. I’m not aware of any other options.
      - viraptor 10mo ago
        sandbox-exec. It's not great, but it's usable. https://igorstechnoclub.com/sandbox-exec/ https://igorstechnoclub.com/sandbox-exec/ > It’s not any different It's very different. With docker on Mac you're running a VM which runs a wrapped up complete system that runs your app. With selinux/sandbox-exec you run just your app and can skip the extra packaging needed for docker and mounts. (And get the extra performance)
        rendaw 10mo ago
giancarlostoro 10mo ago
My favorite bug was Claude Code kept editing some template file. Zed kept auto-formatting the file, which was BREAKING the template itself. It took me like 30 minutes of watching Claude implode, and literally using "ed" to edit the line, before I realized, then I started asking Claude how to turn off the Zed formatters to which it was like AH THAT MAKES MORE SENSE, which I thought was hilarious after it tried everything from editorconfig onwards.
phyzix5761 10mo ago
I agree with you. Zed has a great vision and the team clearly cares, but the foundation still feels a bit shaky. Stability in core workflows matters more than any flashy feature, especially for people who just need their editor to disappear into the background. What gives me hope is that the community feedback is loud and consistent. If the team focuses on tightening the fundamentals, Zed could still become the lightweight but powerful editor everyone hoped for. I’m rooting for them, and like you, I’m ready to give it another full try once the basics feel rock solid.
righthand 10mo ago
You may enjoy Helix as well: https://helix-editor.com/ https://helix-editor.com/
chironjit 10mo ago
I would say you're being harsh but their file tree refresh is bad(so is vs code but they have a manual button), their ai panel can't beat Claude code and their panes / window layouts are not any better or flexible than other editors. I still use it but I'm close to going back to vanilla vs code. I'm just hanging on to determine if my frustrations are from me just being used to vs code or otherwise

johntash 10mo ago

For me, I was happy using Zed until suddenly an update caused it to crash every time I opened it. It was caused by some sort of issue with graphics drivers on linux I guess. I just checked the issue [1] and it is fixed now, but it's crazy to me that I never really thought of my text editor needing to use my graphics card for rendering. [1]: https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/37448 https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/37448

gonational 10mo ago

This, 100%. So many of the basic features (e.g., automatic Python venv, Pyright running, etc.) have random bugs that pop up from time to time, making the basic editor unreliable. My fear is, if they keep going in this direction (adding bloat without fixing basic functionality), they'll be a perfect fit for Microsoft acquisition, at which point I'll have to switch careers, because there isn't any other editor out there that I like.

lvl155 10mo ago

I agree with you 100%. If basic functionalities are not airtight, there’s no way I am going to deal with growing pains just because they want to get paid on AI fluffs. Contrast this with something like Ghostty.

mystifyingpoi 10mo ago

How does Neovim handle outside changes then? Or is there a plugin to make it work? AFAIK it doesn't reload any bufferes when files change. IntelliJ is the only other one I know that does it transparently.

vmiklos 10mo ago
Plain vim asks what to do by default. A single 'l' does a reload.
BinaryPie 10mo ago
In vanilla neovim you can use autoread... this does depend on a focus event like entering and leaving the pane or switching buffers. However, for my workflow which is "go to a different terminal pane and do some things then switch back" as soon as I focus the buffer it updates. Where as with Zed it'll just keep showing the old content and in fact closing and opening file wont even change what it shows in Zed. It's really really annoying. I have to exit zed and open it again. This means if you are working with AI agents you end up having to do this often.
- rorychatt 10mo ago
  Very strange, this has always worked for me with Zed - both with local and remote ssh sessions. I use `"autosave": "on_focus_change"` which may be keeping my buffer in sync with the file contents as I switch between terminal and zed.
lawn 10mo ago
You can configure Neovim to either auto reload or to ask you whenever a file is changed. (Can't remember which one is the default, probably to ask.)
- mystifyingpoi 10mo ago
  Thanks, just found something about that.
- OkayPhysicist 10mo ago

yobert 10mo ago

My experience has been so different. Zed seems to always do the right thing for me when I concurrently edit files with other tools. Not doubting your experience or anything, but you must have a very different environment than me. Zed has been absolutely rock solid for the past year on my computer.

jchw 10mo ago

I am not getting tons of issues with Zed going out of sync all the time. I wonder if the issue is it silently having issues watching the filesystem due to open fd limits. I've noticed that not only does it sync but it even will recognize if I rename the folder a workspace is in. But then, I've run into a couple of strange issues that tell me there is more polish needed: - Sometimes upon using LSP refactor, it seems like if a bunch of files get renamed, the open buffers will get screwed up somehow. Like, I'll hit save and it will write to the old filename! It's not actually a huge problem, as I can close the buffers, delete whatever excess files I accidentally create, and re-open them without error, but it is confusing as hell. - I have indeed had issues with the file view not always updating when files are added externally, however it is not constantly. I usually just reload workspace when this happens. It is a minor frustration, but I had many minor recurring frustrations with both VS Code and Neovim before too, so I don't consider it a deal breaker.

iknowstuff 10mo ago

Oh yeah I’ve noticed both the desync and AI not working via ssh. Also buggy git support, I selected a few things but it committed everything and made me think I lost it all. But I love Zed when it works. Literally 5h more M4 battery life vs Cursor.

gryn 10mo ago

yup, my pet peeve is there is no way to disable line wrap. the setting that exist doesn't work and there's no way to actually disable it instead of just increasing the max characters (with set hard limit in the source code). have a big docs or log,data file where you don't care for the rest of the line ? well too bad better have a spare editor. this feel to me like it should should be a number #1 priority. "an editor need to nail the editing part". https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/discussions/26344 https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/discussions/26344 on the positive side I do like that you can in-place edit the result of global search.

Aeolun 10mo ago
Huh? That doesn’t track with my experience. I spent a long time trying to find out how to enable line wrap, and Zed’s settings are more extensive than most editors.

rsolva 10mo ago

Yeah, I have been fighting Zed to get agents to use podman on my host, but Flatpak is sandboxed and makes it almost impossible. The ideal solution would be that Zed could use podman or docker to spin up a container where agents could run free!

maxbrunsfeld 10mo ago
Agreed, we should support this!
- adastra22 10mo ago
  It’s not just a nice to have. It’s a hard requirement. If I can’t launch agents within a sandboxed container, I can’t use your product - by security policy.

tecoholic 10mo ago

With the AI stuff, it feels like they invested a bit prematurely. When the Agentic editing demo came out (6 months, 10 months ago? It’s a blur), it felt right. Accepting and reviewing edits, live tracking ..etc., felt like pair programming. The ACP addition felt like a natural evolution . With the continuous improvement in CLI tools and people’s experience with them, it feels like doing a live review or edit-by-edit approvals all feel like a drag. I personally have come to avoid using the IDE/Editor. I just kick up Claude code - plan mode, auto-accept edits. Once the session is done, switch to the editor and make necessary adjustments. I suspect people with Max subscription and “dangerously-skip-permissions” …etc won’t even care if an editor has AI integration or not.

girvo 10mo ago
The only editor integration I think is semi useful is wiring it into Diagnostics/Problems data that the editor has from extensions. Speeds up the agents flow quite a bit when it leans on that to check its work vs always executing (say) “eslint” directly. But that can be done easily enough with an MCP extension for your editor/IDE of choice
- adastra22 10mo ago
  Claude hooks are great for this.
giancarlostoro 10mo ago
I used to only use JetBrains for AI stuff, now I just open everything in Zed because of its Claude Code integration. Especially with the linters and other nice to haves. I am insanely close to cancelling JetBrains.
- hboon 10mo ago
  JetBrains products has Claude Code integration. Is it worse? I still use Claude Code in cli, as a WebStorm user.
  - 10mo ago

maxbrunsfeld 10mo ago

Curious about the failure to detect FS changes made outside of Zed. Are you on Linux?

rsolva 10mo ago
I have observed this too, mostly for content that is changed in a symlinked directory, but also generally. I'm on Fedora Silverblue running Zed Preview as a Flatpak. It works great in most other ways though, snappy and beautiful, but the sandboxed environment provides some additional challenges.

85392_school 10mo ago

The thing about "basic" here is that it's subjective. It could be that these issues only happen on your machine or that the staff (or even most people) don't need what you're asking for. Of course they should try to fix them anyway, but their backlog is enormous.

recroad 10mo ago

Agreed. I hear way too much about Zed considering the editor doesn't allow a window to be popped onto a second monitor.

zie 10mo ago
On MacOS 10.15, I have 2 monitors plus the built in on a macbook pro, and I have Zed windows on all 3 of them all the time.
- recroad 10mo ago
  You have to open three Zed instances, don't you?
  - zie 10mo ago
    nope. Single zed app instance.
  - foldr 10mo ago
    No, this works fine with a single Zed instance.
    - recroad 10mo ago
      I stand corrected.

girvo 10mo ago

I know this is silly but the biggest thing that’s driving me away from it is how god awfully blurry it looks on my 1440p screen :/

phcreery 10mo ago
This is also a big issue for me and has one of the largets issues for a while. [1] I wish there was font hinting to the like of windows font rendering. [1] https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/7992 https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/7992
chrisweekly 10mo ago
That's not silly! Great UX is table stakes.
NewsaHackO 10mo ago
I don't have this problem, but issues like this are always a huge barrier, especially when you want users from a polished code editor like VSCode. Personally, I use it because VSCodium does not support the default Python LSP on my Linux box. I like it, but there are definitely areas that seem rough around the edges. My biggest issue is the size of the font and icons. I use a 4K screen, and while the font is readable, the icons are so tiny that I can barely see them. Since it is a new system, I don't just know where they are like I would if it were VSCode.
- twelvedogs 10mo ago
  Yeah same, plus I have poor eyesight so I have to zoom then to click anything
jokethrowaway 10mo ago
Try the latest version, it should be better Personally, I never registered that as a problem, but I can see the delta in screenshots between versions.
- girvo 10mo ago

easygenes 10mo ago

It says they're targeting Spring 2026 for their 1.0 release, so I'll treat as beta and put a calendar entry in for April 2026 to check back in on it.

dbacar 10mo ago

What I like in zed (pretty new to me) is that I dont have to deal with vim/neovim plugings to make the basic stuff work. Zed workds out of the box(for rust).

rounce 10mo ago

> Need to work inside a container because it's 2025 and we don't need to clutter our local machine with 100s of dependencies and env managers... “Can I tell you about our lord and saviour Nix?” Kidding, but seriously though I’ve found having to work in a container to be a bit clumsy, even with good tooling around it. As you said it’s 2025, and there are other ways to have reproducible toolchains that don’t pollute the rest of your system environment Nix or otherwise.

adastra22 10mo ago
In the case of AI tools it is for security reasons, not just reproducible toolchains.
- viraptor 10mo ago
  We need more selinux and sandbox-exec in daily dev lives. There's no reason to bring a whole new system along just to restrict some access.
  - adastra22 10mo ago
    Docker is just a shim on kernel isolation APIs. It’s not any different, but better packaged. But irrelevant in this case. I dev on macOS. I’m not aware of any other options.
    - viraptor 10mo ago
      sandbox-exec. It's not great, but it's usable. https://igorstechnoclub.com/sandbox-exec/ https://igorstechnoclub.com/sandbox-exec/ > It’s not any different It's very different. With docker on Mac you're running a VM which runs a wrapped up complete system that runs your app. With selinux/sandbox-exec you run just your app and can skip the extra packaging needed for docker and mounts. (And get the extra performance)
      - rendaw 10mo ago

giancarlostoro 10mo ago

My favorite bug was Claude Code kept editing some template file. Zed kept auto-formatting the file, which was BREAKING the template itself. It took me like 30 minutes of watching Claude implode, and literally using "ed" to edit the line, before I realized, then I started asking Claude how to turn off the Zed formatters to which it was like AH THAT MAKES MORE SENSE, which I thought was hilarious after it tried everything from editorconfig onwards.

phyzix5761 10mo ago

I agree with you. Zed has a great vision and the team clearly cares, but the foundation still feels a bit shaky. Stability in core workflows matters more than any flashy feature, especially for people who just need their editor to disappear into the background. What gives me hope is that the community feedback is loud and consistent. If the team focuses on tightening the fundamentals, Zed could still become the lightweight but powerful editor everyone hoped for. I’m rooting for them, and like you, I’m ready to give it another full try once the basics feel rock solid.

righthand 10mo ago

You may enjoy Helix as well: https://helix-editor.com/ https://helix-editor.com/

chironjit 10mo ago

I would say you're being harsh but their file tree refresh is bad(so is vs code but they have a manual button), their ai panel can't beat Claude code and their panes / window layouts are not any better or flexible than other editors. I still use it but I'm close to going back to vanilla vs code. I'm just hanging on to determine if my frustrations are from me just being used to vs code or otherwise