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am Cursor main, dont really have any burning pains that make me want to change tools but open to what I dont know. Zed vs Cursor review anyone?

by swyx 2y ago

DevX101 2y ago
They just launched it a few minutes ago. It's going to be a a while for a good review.
diroussel 2y ago
Cursor is electron/vscode based. Zed uses a custom built rust UI and editor model that gives 120fps rendering. (Or was it 60fps) It is really smooth on a Mac with ProMotion.
jvmancuso 2y ago
- open-source vs closed fork of vscode - transparent assistant panel vs opaque composer. you control your own prompts (cf. [0]) - in Zed the assistant panel is "just another editor", which means you can inline-assist when writing prompts. super underrated feature imo - Zed's assistant is pretty hackable as well, you can add slash commands via native Zed extensions [1] or non-native, language-agnostic Context Servers [2] - Zed's /workflow is analogous to Cursor's composer. to be honest it's not quite as good yet, however it's only ~1 week old. we'll catch up in no time :) - native rust vs electron slop. Zed itself is one of the larger Rust projects out there [3], can be hard to work with in VS Code/Cursor, but speedy in Zed itself :) [0]: https://hamel.dev/blog/posts/prompt/ https://hamel.dev/blog/posts/prompt/ [1]: https://zed.dev/docs/extensions/slash-commands https://zed.dev/docs/extensions/slash-commands [2]: https://zed.dev/docs/assistant/context-servers https://zed.dev/docs/assistant/context-servers [3]: https://blog.rust-lang.org/inside-rust/2024/08/15/this-development-cycle-in-cargo-1.81.html#optimizing-git-sources https://blog.rust-lang.org/inside-rust/2024/08/15/this-devel...
- amkkma 2y ago
  Two areas where I think Zed might fall behind: Cursor Tab is REALLY good and probably requires some finetuning/ML chops and some boutique training data. For composer, there's going to be more use of "shadow workspace" https://www.cursor.com/blog/shadow-workspace https://www.cursor.com/blog/shadow-workspace to create an agentic feedback loop/ objective function for codegen along with an ability to navigate the language server and look up definitions and just generally have full context like an engineer. Are there plans for the same in zed? Also, cursor has a model agnostic apply model, whereas you all are leaning on claude.
iamnbutler 2y ago
Hey! I'm Nate from Zed. There are a lot of questions about this, here are some quick thoughts... Cursor is great – We explored an alternate approach to our assistant similar to theirs as well, but in the end we found we wanted to lean into what we think our super power is: Transforming text. So we leaned into it heavily. Zed's assistant is completely designed around retrieving, editing and managing text to create a "context"[0]. That context can be used to have conversations, similar to any assistant chatbot, but can also be used to power transformations right in your code[1], in your terminal, when writing prompts in the Prompt Library... The goal is for context to be highly hackable. You can use the /prompt command to create nested prompts, use globs in the /file command to dynamically import files in a context or prompt... We even expose the underlying prompt templates that power things like the inline assistant so you can override them[2]. This approach doesn't give us the _simplest_ or most approachable assistant, but we think it gives us and everyone else the tools to create the assistant experience that is actually useful to them. We try to build the things we want, then share it with everyone else. TL;DR: Everything is text because text is familiar and it puts you in control. [0]: https://zed.dev/docs/assistant/contexts.html https://zed.dev/docs/assistant/contexts.html [1]: https://zed.dev/docs/assistant/inline-assistant https://zed.dev/docs/assistant/inline-assistant [2]: https://zed.dev/docs/assistant/prompting#overriding-templates https://zed.dev/docs/assistant/prompting#overriding-template...
- thm76 2y ago
  How do I enable Zed AI? I'm logged in, using Zed Preview, and selecting the model does nothing. In the configuration it says I "must accept the terms of service to use this provider" but I don't see where and how I can do that.
  - tdomhan 2y ago
    I'm having the same problem.
    - fastball 2y ago
      Ditto. EDIT: figured it out. My Zed settings was broken, because it tries to create a settings file in "~/.config/zed", and my entire "~/.config" directory is symlinked somewhere else, so macOS permissions broke Zed's ability to create that config file. So I gave Zed full-disk access in the macOS "Privacy & Security" settings, Zed is now able to make a config file (which is where the model is set when you choose one), and everything is hunky dory.

am Cursor main, dont really have any burning pains that make me want to change tools but open to what I dont know. Zed vs Cursor review anyone?

by swyx 2y ago

am Cursor main, dont really have any burning pains that make me want to change tools but open to what I dont know. Zed vs Cursor review anyone?

DevX101 2y ago

They just launched it a few minutes ago. It's going to be a a while for a good review.

diroussel 2y ago

Cursor is electron/vscode based. Zed uses a custom built rust UI and editor model that gives 120fps rendering. (Or was it 60fps) It is really smooth on a Mac with ProMotion.

jvmancuso 2y ago

- open-source vs closed fork of vscode - transparent assistant panel vs opaque composer. you control your own prompts (cf. [0]) - in Zed the assistant panel is "just another editor", which means you can inline-assist when writing prompts. super underrated feature imo - Zed's assistant is pretty hackable as well, you can add slash commands via native Zed extensions [1] or non-native, language-agnostic Context Servers [2] - Zed's /workflow is analogous to Cursor's composer. to be honest it's not quite as good yet, however it's only ~1 week old. we'll catch up in no time :) - native rust vs electron slop. Zed itself is one of the larger Rust projects out there [3], can be hard to work with in VS Code/Cursor, but speedy in Zed itself :) [0]: https://hamel.dev/blog/posts/prompt/ https://hamel.dev/blog/posts/prompt/ [1]: https://zed.dev/docs/extensions/slash-commands https://zed.dev/docs/extensions/slash-commands [2]: https://zed.dev/docs/assistant/context-servers https://zed.dev/docs/assistant/context-servers [3]: https://blog.rust-lang.org/inside-rust/2024/08/15/this-development-cycle-in-cargo-1.81.html#optimizing-git-sources https://blog.rust-lang.org/inside-rust/2024/08/15/this-devel...

amkkma 2y ago
Two areas where I think Zed might fall behind: Cursor Tab is REALLY good and probably requires some finetuning/ML chops and some boutique training data. For composer, there's going to be more use of "shadow workspace" https://www.cursor.com/blog/shadow-workspace https://www.cursor.com/blog/shadow-workspace to create an agentic feedback loop/ objective function for codegen along with an ability to navigate the language server and look up definitions and just generally have full context like an engineer. Are there plans for the same in zed? Also, cursor has a model agnostic apply model, whereas you all are leaning on claude.

iamnbutler 2y ago

Hey! I'm Nate from Zed. There are a lot of questions about this, here are some quick thoughts... Cursor is great – We explored an alternate approach to our assistant similar to theirs as well, but in the end we found we wanted to lean into what we think our super power is: Transforming text. So we leaned into it heavily. Zed's assistant is completely designed around retrieving, editing and managing text to create a "context"[0]. That context can be used to have conversations, similar to any assistant chatbot, but can also be used to power transformations right in your code[1], in your terminal, when writing prompts in the Prompt Library... The goal is for context to be highly hackable. You can use the /prompt command to create nested prompts, use globs in the /file command to dynamically import files in a context or prompt... We even expose the underlying prompt templates that power things like the inline assistant so you can override them[2]. This approach doesn't give us the _simplest_ or most approachable assistant, but we think it gives us and everyone else the tools to create the assistant experience that is actually useful to them. We try to build the things we want, then share it with everyone else. TL;DR: Everything is text because text is familiar and it puts you in control. [0]: https://zed.dev/docs/assistant/contexts.html https://zed.dev/docs/assistant/contexts.html [1]: https://zed.dev/docs/assistant/inline-assistant https://zed.dev/docs/assistant/inline-assistant [2]: https://zed.dev/docs/assistant/prompting#overriding-templates https://zed.dev/docs/assistant/prompting#overriding-template...

thm76 2y ago
How do I enable Zed AI? I'm logged in, using Zed Preview, and selecting the model does nothing. In the configuration it says I "must accept the terms of service to use this provider" but I don't see where and how I can do that.
- tdomhan 2y ago
  I'm having the same problem.
  - fastball 2y ago
    Ditto. EDIT: figured it out. My Zed settings was broken, because it tries to create a settings file in "~/.config/zed", and my entire "~/.config" directory is symlinked somewhere else, so macOS permissions broke Zed's ability to create that config file. So I gave Zed full-disk access in the macOS "Privacy & Security" settings, Zed is now able to make a config file (which is where the model is set when you choose one), and everything is hunky dory.