Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login
Ask HN: Zed Instead of Cursor?
3 points by travisgriggs 34 days ago | hide | past | favorite | 2 comments
Curious on what others might have to say on using Zed instead of Cursor?

I figured I'd experiment with Cursor in January, and so have spent 4 months with that. I figured I'd try a different one now. I'm going to give Zed a run for a few months.

Cursor was decent. The agent stuff was helpful somedays, and there were a couple of "what the heck are you doing??" But overall, net positive. I wish the transition between just ask and agent was more fluid. I wish it were in the markdown/prompt itself, instead of a separate toggle button. In agent mode, it was way too eager to rewrite my stuff when I just had a question. And then I find myself forgetting I was in ask mode, and having to flip the mode just to say "yeah, can you write code for what I just asked". VSCode was full of features of course, but it also feels like a backpack that first time backpackers pack: too weighted down with too many things.

So far, Zed feels spartan and lean, almost too much the other way. What I wouldn't give for an actual settings dialog/form instead of having to dig through and edit json files. I've noticed more needs for reboots to get the communication with the agent working again. But it is snappy.




I still come back to Cursor to read diffs, I really need a split editor diff view to understand the changes


Agree, I recently started using Zed as my primary IDE, with Cursor as my secondary when I need an llm to write a lot code. I really prefer the less hard in approach of Zed so far. I’ve intentionally not enabled any of the Ai add-on / free trial Claude stuff to keep Zed less intrusive.

Btw - I try to always check in and have a clean slate before I get Cursor involved, that way if it goes nuts rewriting stuff or flat out fails at the task I can easily discard the change.




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2025 batch! Applications are open till Aug 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: