head to head · open source
Zed vs lite-xl
Zed has 92,568 GitHub stars, 11,364 forks, 3,159 open issues and last shipped yesterday. lite-xl has 6,502 stars, 328 forks, 330 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Zed leads on adoption by 1,324% (92,568 vs 6,502 stars). Zed is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence; lite-xl is written in Lua under MIT. Zed has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, lite-xl 5%. 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 | lite-xl | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 93K | ★ 6.5K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | Lua |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 328 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Zed if
- You weight community size — 93K 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 lite-xl if
- You want the lite-xl feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Lua
- You evaluated both and lite-xl fits your workflow better
About Zed
Zed Welcome to Zed, a high performance, multiplayer code editor from the creators of Atom and Tree sitter. Installation On macOS, Linux, and Windows you can download Zed directly or install Zed via your local package manager (macOS/Linux/Windows). Other platforms are not yet available: Web (tracking discussion) Developing Zed Building Zed for macOS Building Zed for Linux Building Zed for Windows Contributing See CONTRIBUTING.md for ways you can contribute to Zed. Also... we're hiring! Check out our jobs page for open roles. Licensing Zed source code is licensed primarily under GPL 3.0 or later, with Apache 2.0…
About lite-xl
Lite XL [![CI]]( [![Discord Badge Image]]( ![screenshot dark] A lightweight text editor written in Lua, adapted from [lite]. [Get Lite XL] — Download for Windows, Linux and Mac OS. [Get plugins] — Add additional functionality, adapted for Lite XL. [Get color themes] — Add additional colors themes. Please refer to our [website] for the user and developer documentation, including [build] instructions details. A quick build guide is described below. Lite XL has support for high DPI display on Windows and Linux and, since 1.16.7 release, it supports retina displays on macOS. Please note that Lite XL is compatible…
read the full lite-xl overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zed or lite-xl more popular?
Zed has 92,568 GitHub stars and lite-xl has 6,502. Zed has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zed and lite-xl free?
Both are open source. Zed has no licence declared in this registry, and lite-xl is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Zed and lite-xl?
Zed is written in Rust and lite-xl in Lua. 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 lite-xl?
Choose Zed if you want the larger community (92,568 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose lite-xl if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.