head to head · open source
Zed vs terax-ai
Zed has 90,512 GitHub stars, 10,680 forks, 3,159 open issues and last shipped yesterday. terax-ai has 9,221 stars, 1,007 forks, 449 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Zed leads on adoption by 882% (90,512 vs 9,221 stars). Zed is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence; terax-ai is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. Zed has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, terax-ai 11%. 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 | terax-ai | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 91K | ★ 9.2K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 1.0K |
| 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 terax-ai if
- You want the terax-ai feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and terax-ai 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 terax-ai
Terax is a lightweight, open source, terminal first AI native development environment (ADE) for developers who want a fast native workspace with agentic AI assistance, built on Tauri 2, Rust, and React 19, and released under the Apache 2.0 licence.
read the full terax-ai overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zed or terax-ai more popular?
Zed has 90,512 GitHub stars and terax-ai has 9,221. Zed has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zed and terax-ai free?
Both are open source. Zed has no licence declared in this registry, and terax-ai is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Zed and terax-ai?
Zed is written in Rust and terax-ai 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 terax-ai?
Choose Zed if you want the larger community (90,512 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose terax-ai if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.