head to head · open source
Zed vs CodeEdit
Zed has 90,586 GitHub stars, 10,702 forks, 3,159 open issues and last shipped today. CodeEdit has 23,034 stars, 1,191 forks, 213 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. Zed leads on adoption by 293% (90,586 vs 23,034 stars). Zed is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence; CodeEdit is written in Swift under MIT. Zed has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, CodeEdit 5%. Zed was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Zed | CodeEdit | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 91K | ★ 23K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-08-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Zed if
- You weight community size — 91K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick CodeEdit if
- You want the CodeEdit feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You evaluated both and CodeEdit fits your workflow better
About Zed
Zed is a high performance, multiplayer code editor written in Rust, built by the creators of Atom and Tree sitter and aimed at developers who want a native, fast editing surface with AI assistance built in.
About CodeEdit
CodeEdit is a code editor for macOS. It is written in Swift, released under the MIT license, and described as a community project. The GitHub description says the app is open source and free forever. The project aims to provide a native editing experience for developers who work on software outside Apple platform projects.
read the full CodeEdit overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zed or CodeEdit more popular?
Zed has 90,586 GitHub stars and CodeEdit has 23,034. Zed has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zed and CodeEdit free?
Both are open source. Zed has no licence declared in this registry, and CodeEdit is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Zed and CodeEdit?
Zed is written in Rust and CodeEdit in Swift. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Zed or CodeEdit?
Choose Zed if you want the larger community (90,586 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose CodeEdit if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.