For people who have tried the new agent panel in Zed, how does it compare to something like Cursor or Windsurf?
(I've yet to dive deep into AI coding tools and currently use Zed as an 'open source Sublime Text alternative' because I like the low latency editing.)
I'd say it's closer to Claude Code than to either of the two IDE-oriented ones. I say this because it actually does the right thing more often than either Cursor or Windsurf. It gathers the right context, asks for feedback when needed and has yet to "go back and forth between two failing solutions" like I've seen Cursor do.
I don't know what Zed's doing under the hood but the diffing tool has yet to fail on me (compared to multiple times per conversation in Cursor). Compared to previous Zed AI iterations, this one edits files much more willingly and clearly communicates what it's editing. It's also faster than Claude Code at getting up to speed on context and much faster than Cursor or Windsurf.
(I've yet to dive deep into AI coding tools and currently use Zed as an 'open source Sublime Text alternative' because I like the low latency editing.)