head to head · open source
Zed vs react-ace
Zed has 90,512 GitHub stars, 10,680 forks, 3,159 open issues and last shipped yesterday. react-ace has 4,206 stars, 598 forks, 217 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Zed leads on adoption by 2,052% (90,512 vs 4,206 stars). Zed is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence; react-ace is written in TypeScript under MIT. Zed has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, react-ace 14%. 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 | react-ace | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 91K | ★ 4.2K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 598 |
| 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 react-ace if
- You want the react-ace feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and react-ace 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 react-ace
React Ace is a set of React components that wrap the Ace code editor, published on npm under the MIT licence for developers who need an editable code surface inside a React application.
read the full react-ace overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zed or react-ace more popular?
Zed has 90,512 GitHub stars and react-ace has 4,206. Zed has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zed and react-ace free?
Both are open source. Zed has no licence declared in this registry, and react-ace is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Zed and react-ace?
Zed is written in Rust and react-ace in TypeScript. 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 react-ace?
Choose Zed if you want the larger community (90,512 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose react-ace if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.