SSH Remoting

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Performance and UX

  • Many praise Zed as “snappy” with low UI latency, even on large C/C++/Rust/TS projects, especially compared to heavy IDEs (JetBrains, Visual Studio, Android Studio).
  • Some argue VS Code is already fast enough; perceived slowness is usually from language servers, which Zed also uses, so net gains may be modest.
  • Others counter that a native UI that never stutters still feels substantially better than “one of the fastest Electron apps.”

Remote Development & Latency

  • SSH remoting is compared heavily to VS Code Remote and Emacs TRAMP.
  • Users like running the UI locally while heavy work (builds, language servers, data processing) runs on remote or containerized Linux (Orbstack, devcontainers, headless VMs).
  • Latency experience varies: same-continent servers can feel almost local; cross-continent or heavily loaded servers are noticeably laggier, especially terminals.
  • Some consider remote editing over SSH unnecessary and prefer sshfs/NFS plus a local editor, tmux+vim/nvim, or Emacs over ssh/mosh.

Security, Downloads, and Remote Server

  • Concern that Zed downloads NodeJS/npm and remote server binaries without sufficient user consent or cryptographic verification; this is an open issue.
  • Some see automatic remote binaries (Zed, VS Code, JetBrains) as a significant attack vector or policy violation on production servers.
  • Others respond that anyone with SSH access can already run arbitrary code, and that remote backends are needed for scalable LSP/AI features.
  • Zed’s remote server is open source and statically linked with musl for broader distro compatibility; resource footprint vs VS Code’s server is raised but not clearly answered.

Features and Language Support

  • Strong feedback for Rust, Go, C/C++ and general editing (including vim mode, Ruff integration) but:
    • No interactive debugging yet; this is a deal-breaker for C#, Rust, remote Python debug (debugpy) and JVM-heavy work.
    • Missing or immature integrations: mypy, eslint, git UI, XML highlighting, theme import (e.g., FairyFloss), and weaker Java experience.
  • Some users revert to VS Code or JetBrains for these gaps.

Platform & Rendering Issues

  • No official Windows build yet; community builds exist but are reported flaky.
  • WSL/WSL-like workflows are not yet supported.
  • Some macOS users report notably blurry text on low/medium DPI displays compared to Sublime; others report no issue.

Business Model, Licensing, and Trust

  • Code is GPL/AGPL; plan is a free editor with paid, optional collaboration/network features (channels, calls, chat).
  • Opinions split:
    • Some appreciate the FLOSS licensing and are willing to pay or donate.
    • Others are skeptical a VC-backed free core + paid-collab plan is sustainable, expect future “enshittification,” or fear a rug-pull/acquisition.
  • Comparisons are made to VS Code’s dual-licensing (MIT core vs proprietary Microsoft build), VSCodium, and language-server lock-in (e.g., some MS LSPs tied to official VS Code).