VS Code used to be the editor that saved us from the Eclipse/IntelliJ bloat wars of 2015. Ironic that it became the bloated piece of shit we were trying to escape from.
I'm writing this on August 30, 2025, after 2 months with Zed. Here's the unfiltered truth about switching when VS Code has finally pushed you over the edge.
The Performance Hell That Broke Me
I'm running a 2022 MacBook Pro with 32GB RAM. That should be plenty for a fucking text editor that literally just displays text. But VS Code 1.93.1 with the basic dev setup - TypeScript v5.5.2, ESLint v2.8.0, Prettier v10.4.0, and GitLens v15.0.2 - regularly hits 4-6GB and sometimes peaks at 8GB when opening large TypeScript projects. There's a GitHub issue with 500+ comments of developers losing their shit about the same memory bloat problem.
Opening my medium React project (about 150 components)? 4-second beachball spinner while my laptop fan spins up to airplane engine levels just to render fucking syntax highlighting. Meanwhile Activity Monitor shows 15+ separate VS Code processes because apparently we need a dedicated Chrome instance for every single feature. Extension Host, Language Server, TypeScript Server, Git Integration Process - it's process hell for what should be opening a text file.
Enough. I switched to Zed because my MacBook was literally thermal throttling from editing text files.
Same project that made VS Code consume 4GB+ and sound like a jet engine? Zed uses under 150MB and stays silent. The difference isn't subtle - it's like switching from a dying HDD to an NVMe SSD. Once you experience Zed opening projects instantly, going back to VS Code's startup delays feels prehistoric.
Zed is written in Rust instead of being Chrome pretending to be a text editor. That's the whole difference. No Electron bullshit, no web rendering for basic text editing. Everyone I know who switched reports the same thing - memory usage drops by 70-80%. Mine went from constant 4GB+ to under 150MB. Your laptop fan finally gets to rest.
But VS Code's performance problems run deeper than just memory. The extension ecosystem is slowly strangling what used to be a decent editor.
The Extension Addiction Problem
VS Code's 40,000 extensions are a fucking trap. Sure, there's an extension for everything. There's also an extension conflict for everything. And 90% are abandoned projects that break with every VS Code update.
Last month I spent 2 hours debugging why TypeScript suddenly stopped working after VS Code updated to 1.93.1. Turns out GitLens v15.0.2 and GitHub Pull Requests v0.9.0 were both trying to manage Git blame view and stepping all over each other. The error log just said "Extension activation failed" - super fucking helpful. Solution? Disable extensions one by one like it's 2015 until something works again. Found the conflict buried in Output > Log (Extension Host) after checking 12 different panels.
Zed just includes the shit that VS Code makes you hunt for in the extension marketplace. Git blame and history? Built in. Prettier formatting? LSP handles it natively. No more spending an hour configuring 5 extensions that then spend the next month conflicting with each other.
The brutal truth about your VS Code extensions:
- 70% duplicate functionality Zed has built-in
- 20% you installed once and completely forgot about
- 8% you use occasionally but could live without
- 2% actually critical to your workflow
That last 2% determines whether you can actually switch or if you're stuck in VS Code hell forever.
Collaboration That Actually Works
VS Code Live Share is a joke. Install extension, sign into Microsoft account, wait 30+ seconds for connection, pray it doesn't randomly disconnect mid-session. Half the time you spend more effort setting up collaboration than actually collaborating.
Zed's collaboration just fucking works. Share a project link, teammate clicks it, boom - you're pair programming with voice chat and screen sharing that doesn't lag like Zoom on a potato connection.
While you're still waiting for VS Code Live Share to establish connection, Zed users have already found and fixed the bug.
The collaboration works great when it works, but there's another subscription trap waiting: AI coding assistants.
AI Without the GitHub Tax
VS Code locks you into GitHub's $10/month Copilot subscription. Because Microsoft gotta Microsoft - get you hooked on the editor, then extract subscription fees for AI. Zed says fuck that and lets you bring your own AI keys - OpenAI, Anthropic, Claude, even local models if you're paranoid about sending code to big tech.
Heavy Copilot users save money paying OpenAI directly. Privacy-conscious devs can keep their code local. Either way, you're not trapped in Microsoft's subscription ecosystem.
The Windows Developer Problem
Windows developers are fucked for now. Zed's Windows version is still closed alpha as of August 2025. Late 2025 stable release, maybe. We all know how software estimates go.
This isn't the Zed team being lazy - Windows is genuinely different. Graphics APIs, file system operations, even keyboard shortcuts work differently. Zed's custom GPU-accelerated UI can't just be "ported" like slapping Electron on Windows and calling it done.
Team Migration Reality
Convincing your team to switch editors is like suggesting a rewrite - senior devs immediately say no, junior devs get excited about new shiny thing, and that one teammate refuses to change anything ever. Classic dev team dynamics.
Mixed teams work fine since Git doesn't give a shit what editor you use. But you lose the collaboration features that make Zed actually worth switching for. Kind of defeats the point if you're the only one using the good collaboration tools.
The Ugly Truth About Switching
Real talk: Zed handles 90% of my dev work perfectly, but I still keep VS Code around for debugging Docker networking issues. Zed's debugging story just isn't there yet. If you live in the VS Code debugger, Zed will disappoint.
The extension ecosystem is tiny compared to VS Code's 40,000 options. Yeah, most VS Code extensions are abandoned garbage, but you'll miss the 3 actually good ones. That one weird extension you depend on that doesn't exist in Zed yet? That's what determines if you can actually switch or if you're stuck.
My 2-Month Reality Check (Including That One Production Fuckup)
After 2 months with Zed, going back to VS Code feels like voluntary torture. The first time you open a large project in Zed and it's just... instant... you realize how much of your life you've pissed away watching VS Code's loading spinners.
The breaking point was last week during a production incident. Critical bug in our payment service, users can't checkout, money not flowing, CEO breathing down everyone's neck. I'm trying to debug the issue and VS Code decides to choke on opening a 78MB log file. Beachball spinner for 90 fucking seconds while the production system burns. Had to switch to vim in the terminal just to read the damn logs and find the database connection timeout.
Cost us 15 minutes of downtime that could have been 2 minutes if my editor didn't have a seizure opening a large file. That's when I said fuck this and downloaded Zed. Same 78MB file? Opens instantly, no drama, no laptop fan concert.
But enough evangelizing. You're probably thinking "what's the catch?" Because there's always a catch. Here's the real shit that breaks when you try to switch.
