Leaving Neovim for Zed

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Developers are weighing the appeal of Zed, a fast, polished GUI code editor with built‑in AI and collaboration, against long‑established tools like Neovim, Vim, VS Code, and JetBrains IDEs. Many appreciate Zed’s out‑of‑the‑box experience and performance, especially compared to the plugin and configuration churn common in Neovim setups, but criticize missing basics (e.g., robust vim mode, indentation controls, EditorConfig, mature LSP integration) and its early focus on SaaS-style features. The broader debate centers on trade‑offs between extensibility and stability, local control and cloud services, terminal ubiquity and modern GUIs, and how much configuration work developers are willing to tolerate from their editors.

Overall reception of Zed

  • Many find Zed fast, smooth, and pleasant, especially compared to VS Code on large projects.
  • Several people have switched from Neovim or VS Code to Zed (sometimes partially), others tried it and went back after hitting missing features or bugs.
  • Some see Zed as a strong “pre‑1.0‑feeling” editor: impressive but not yet fully polished.

Zed vs Neovim & configuration fatigue

  • A recurring theme: Neovim’s power and plugin ecosystem are great, but configs are fragile and time‑consuming to maintain; updates can break setups.
  • Zed appeals by providing LSP, git indicators, REPLs, and AI “out of the box” with no ricing.
  • Others argue Neovim can be stable if you avoid plugin churn or use curated distros (LazyVim, AstroVim, NvChad, LunarVim, SpaceVim).

Zed vs VS Code and other GUI editors

  • Some VS Code users tried Zed but missed mature extensions, debugging, strong git tooling, EditorConfig, and robust TS/JS or Rust language server integration.
  • VS Code’s remote development is still seen as best‑in‑class; Zed’s remote/containers support is in preview and flaky for some.
  • Sublime Text users praise its speed and polish; some are testing Zed mainly for its AI integration.

Vim mode & editing behavior

  • Zed’s Vim mode is praised as a good way to learn Vim, but also criticized as buggy: cut/copy/paste issues, incomplete motions, and especially the default of using the system clipboard as the unnamed register.
  • There’s extensive debate on how Vim registers should interact with the OS clipboard; some like system clipboard by default, others find it disastrous for workflow.

Missing features & platform limitations in Zed

  • Noted gaps: EditorConfig, robust indentation detection/override per file, settings UI, better git/diff tools, debugging, broader language support, better TS/JS experience, Perl highlighting.
  • Linux/NixOS users complain about forced auto‑updates, limited reuse of existing language servers, and poor direnv integration.
  • Lack of Windows support is a hard blocker for some.

Collaboration, AI & business/privacy concerns

  • Many users say they don’t care about built‑in collaboration or chat and just want a fast, solid editor; some fear core editing is being neglected in favor of VC‑friendly AI/collab features.
  • Others love Zed’s AI and REPL integration and see this as its differentiator.
  • A few express strong discomfort with automatic downloading of tools and unclear data flows to Zed’s servers, viewing this as a dealbreaker.

Alternative editors highlighted

  • Helix is praised as “just works” with modal editing and LSP out‑of‑the‑box, though missing plugins.
  • Classic Vim is defended as more mature and stable than Neovim; Emacs mentioned similarly.
  • JetBrains IDEs are valued for “it just works” depth but criticized for heaviness and licensing.
  • Kate, Sublime, Cursor, and others are cited as strong niche choices.