Cursor AI, the 'ChatGPT' of coding, now has a new rival, Zed AI, in addition to Magic and Codeium, among others.
Zed Industries recently released Zed AI, a code editor which brings LLMs directly into your editor with an extensible, text-centric approach. Zed was founded in 2021 by Nathan Sobo, who previously worked at GitHub, where he built and led the Atom text editor team until 2018.
"Switched from Cursor to Zed this week and am really enjoying it so far. It's faster and I like their approach to AI," said Nathan Baschez, the founder of Lex. "Also love editing and saving files directly in the search results page -- makes refactoring much easier," he added.
Zed AI, powered by Anthropic's Claude Sonnet 3.5, offers advanced code generation. The company is also testing a new Fast Edit mode with a small group of users. The AI-assisted code editor is written from scratch in Rust to efficiently leverage multiple CPU cores and GPU, making it incredibly fast.
Zed allows developers to integrate upcoming LLMs into their workflow to generate, transform, and analyse code. Moreover, users can chat with teammates, write notes together, and share their screens and projects.
Cursor AI, on the other hand, is built on the foundation of Visual Studio Code (VS Code), one of the most popular code editors among developers.
"IMO, Cursor's integration with VS Code is a major advantage for it.
Basically, most developers prefer sticking with tools they are already used to," posted a user on X. Another user said, "One of the reasons Cursor was a hit is because it's based on VS Code and you can carry over all your VS Code extensions, etc."
Many believe that if VS Code adds AI-assisted features, it will make Cursor redundant. On the other hand, some predict that Cursor AI could be acquired by Microsoft soon.
"Historically all these tools are primarily owned by the biggies. So either the copilot comes back, or Cursor could be bought, which is good for Cursor," said Vishnu Subramanian, the founder of Jarvislabs.ai.
Compared to Cursor, Zed is amazingly fast. "I recently switched from Neovim to Zed, and OMG this thing is impressive. Blazing-fast text editor (authors wrote their own GPU-accelerated UI framework in Rust), best-in-class AI integration, WASM-based extensions, etc. Much better than any VS Code fork," posted a user on X.
Zed AI comes with three key features - assistant panel, inline transformations, and customisable slash commands.
Assistant panel allows developers to interact with AI models in a text editor format, providing full transparency and control over AI interactions. It enables users to edit and refine AI requests using familiar coding tools, ensuring that developers maintain control over their code.
The company claims that Zed's assistant panel isn't a typical chat interface. "It's a full-fledged text editor exposing the entire LLM interaction. Slash commands (/file, /terminal, /tab) integrate context, but every token is visible and editable. Transparency and control, not magic," the company said in a post on X.
On the other hand, inline transformations allow for code transformation and generation through natural language prompts. It provides precise and responsive feedback, enabling developers to see changes in real-time as they are streamed from the model.
Cursor AI predicts the developer's next edits, allowing for a smoother and faster coding process. This predictive capability helps in reducing the time spent on repetitive coding tasks. This feature is not available in Zed yet.
Moreover, Cursor can suggest multiple edits simultaneously, saving your time. Its Smart Rewrites feature lets developers type more freely, with Cursor automatically correcting any errors.
In contrast, Zed's custom slash commands support a system of slash commands that help populate context for AI interactions. These commands can include contents from open tabs, specific files, terminal outputs, and more, allowing AI to assist in development tasks effectively.
Slash commands can be customised using WebAssembly or a JSON-based protocol, offering new and exciting possibilities. Developers can design their own commands to fit their specific workflow. The company anticipates a future where language servers could use/commands to retrieve context in language-specific formats.
Zed, Cursor AI, and GitHub Copilot are just a few tools making coding easier. Codeium and Melty are also joining the fray.
Recently, there has been a surge in developers actively uninstalling VS Code in favor of Cursor IDEs. Other IDEs such as Jetbrains, PyCharm, and IDLE, are also facing a similar crisis as AI-generated coding gains traction.
Modern generative AI coding tools are capable of integrating several open-source LLMs instead of a traditional IDE like VS Code, making it handy for several AI developers. "You can select code and ask questions based on that piece of code. So you don't have to keep switching between the IDE and browser," explained a developer on X.
But it simply means that most of the IDEs in the future would come with generative AI integration. It would become the default for IDEs as it was for integrating no-code and low-code platforms.
