head to head · open source
Zed vs sidex
Zed has 92,568 GitHub stars, 11,364 forks, 3,159 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. sidex has 3,161 stars, 264 forks, 50 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Zed leads on adoption by 2,828% (92,568 vs 3,161 stars). Zed is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence; sidex is written in TypeScript under MIT. Zed has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, sidex 8%. 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 | sidex | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 93K | ★ 3.2K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-08-26 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 264 |
| 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 sidex if
- You want the sidex feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and sidex 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 sidex
SideX VSCode's workbench, without Electron. Why · What's Working · AI Agent · Getting Started · How It's Built · Contributing · Discord SideX is a port of Visual Studio Code that replaces Electron with Tauri — a Rust backend and OS's native webview. The same TypeScript workbench, the same editor, terminal, and Git integration, running without a bundled browser. Early release. Core editing and the terminal are solid. The extension host and debugger are still in progress. See What's Working for the full picture. Why VSCode's memory useage is almost entirely from its bundled Chromium, not the editor itself. Tauri…
read the full sidex overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zed or sidex more popular?
Zed has 92,568 GitHub stars and sidex has 3,161. Zed has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zed and sidex free?
Both are open source. Zed has no licence declared in this registry, and sidex is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Zed and sidex?
Zed is written in Rust and sidex 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 sidex?
Choose Zed if you want the larger community (92,568 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose sidex if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.