Zed (Editor) Has Suddenly Become Terrible, IMHO

10 points Feb 13, 2025

The code editor, Zed (https://zed.dev) started out as the best thing since the heyday of Sublime Text. Over the past 3 months, it's become the worst piece of software I've ever used. I'm running a 2019 late MacBook Pro, so not the latest and greatest, but, we're talking about a code editor, not 3D modeling software. And, I don't use any LLM features.

Zed often consumes so much CPU that my fan runs on full blast. It freezes up, the editor features (like Python checking based on pylsp, etc.) often don't even work any more (hover over a red squiggly and the message is about something that was fixed 5 minutes prior). There are countless little bugs that I encounter, especially WRT the search features; bugs so bad that I have to end the app and start over.

How can a software be so good and so fast, with a tremendous UX, and then become hot garbage in a single quarter?

Were they bought or something? Does anyone know, did they maybe hire too many junior devs, etc.?

muzani Feb 13, 2025

I avoided Zed (from the creators of Atom) for this reason. Sometimes people learn from their mistakes. But it didn't seem like they were embarrassed of it. Plus they're a AI company too, and that alone lends itself to feature bloat.

mikaylamaki Feb 13, 2025

Sorry you had this experience with Zed. We've seen a few reports of issues with our python integration (https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/23170, https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/22426), and we'll be taking a look at these next week. Please do a file an issue for performance problems like this, it's a bug if Zed isn't fast for your use case :)

gonational OP Feb 14, 2025

I don't make tickets in GitHub, but I regularly give specific feedback in the feedback form. Do you guys look at those?

mikaylamaki Feb 14, 2025

We do! Sorry we missed your feedback.

moojacob Feb 14, 2025

Python checking is definitely broken. Just failed to use it in a Python project today. Fortunately Ruby still works pretty well which is what I've mostly been coding in.

I think it's just that they broke Python. Which happens but I will be using VSCode for Python stuff until they fix it.

Creating bugs happens. Writing software is hard lol. But I wish the developers reduced their scope a bit so a major bug doesn't last two months without getting fixed.

zahlman Feb 13, 2025

Have you actually updated the software in that time? Did you try reverting to a previous version? Have you looked for ways that your current workflow differs from how you used to do things (tendency towards larger files / differently structured files / different kinds of edits / etc.)?

gonational OP Feb 13, 2025

I just updated it this afternoon, for instance. I update it always.

The project I'm working in is fairly large Python app with a few hundred Python modules, HTML, JavaScript, etc. I wouldn't expect the size of the project to be linearly related to the performance of an editor while I'm working in 2-3 files at a time.

vednig Feb 14, 2025

It's still in heavy development, optimization based on usage patterns might not have been included yet, you can open up issue with exact details on usage and that might help make it faster, one of the perks of open-source/

tripplyons Feb 13, 2025

Does this issue still occur when disabling all installed extensions? Does this issue occur with a default configuration? I don't use Zed, but when I tried it I didn't have these issues.

gonational OP Feb 13, 2025

TBH, I only have HTML, TOML, and Dockerfile installed, and these (plus a few more) don't cause an issue on my M2 MacBook Air.

SirensOfTitan Feb 14, 2025

Yeah, now that you mention it, Zed is saturating my CPU to 100% all the time now and it didn’t used to.

…that bothers me a little, but tooltips when moving over symbols via my keyboard drive me crazy—they often sit above an LSP autocomplete.

Overall I still like the editor, but I am definitely worried they’re going to focus on AI slop like everyone else and ignore the core experience.

mocenigo Feb 14, 2025

I don't know. I think it is a fantastic editor and yes, I do some python as well.

beretguy Feb 14, 2025

Rust something something Linux something something braking changes, maintenance something something...

talldayo Feb 13, 2025

Have you at least opened Activity Monitor to confirm that Zed is the issue? Often times a misbehaving LSP, broken hardware acceleration or mdworker_shared can impact your system's performance.

Running Zed on Linux has gotten pretty good for my uses. It flies on my shitty dual-core netbook, maybe I haven't updated to the same build as you have...?

gonational OP Feb 13, 2025

Yeah, I've opened Activity Monitor and confirmed that it's Zed and/or the Python instance that Zed is spawning (via a 3.11 venv).

To be fair, Zed is running just fine on an M2 MacBook Air. I just wouldn't expect a code editor, with minimal features enabled, to bog down a 2019 MacBook Pro.

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