head to head · open source
Zed vs helix
Zed has 90,512 GitHub stars, 10,680 forks, 3,159 open issues and last shipped yesterday. helix has 46,270 stars, 3,758 forks, 1,671 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Zed leads on adoption by 96% (90,512 vs 46,270 stars). Zed is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence; helix is written in Rust under MPL-2.0. Zed has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, helix 8%. Zed was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (text-editor), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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 | helix | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 91K | ★ 46K |
| License | Custom / other | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 3.8K |
| 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 helix if
- You want the helix feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and helix 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 helix
Helix is a post modern modal text editor written in Rust that brings the selection first Kakoune editing model to the terminal, aimed at developers who want Vim style modal editing with language tooling built into the editor rather than assembled from a plugin stack.
read the full helix overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zed or helix more popular?
Zed has 90,512 GitHub stars and helix has 46,270. Zed has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zed and helix free?
Both are open source. Zed has no licence declared in this registry, and helix is licensed under MPL-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Zed and helix?
Zed is written in Rust and helix in Rust. 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 helix?
Choose Zed if you want the larger community (90,512 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose helix if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.