Many companies are considering IDEs the way to reach developers. Atom started the trend of next generation IDEs and VSCode consolidated most of the market. With the AI raising, people are looking to get usage, gathering data, and positioning models. An IDE provides you all of that.
AI seems to be a way to engage happy users to try new things. Kiro joins a growing list of projects:
- Kiro (AWS)
- VSCode + Copilot (Microsoft)
- Windsurf (OpenAI tried to get it)
- Cursor
- Trae (Alibaba)
- Zed
- etc.
I put Zed in a separate category in the past. Now with assistants / agents, it's playing on the same space.
The market is a bit saturated and tools like Claude Code gave some flexibility and an alternative for users. I tried Cursor in the past, and now I'm back to Helix / VSCode + Claude Code.
I love Zed as an editor/IDE without ANY AI/LLM features. I think the AI support in Zed is actually pretty decent and I'm still using it out of habit (actively trying to use more TUI for AI).
But at the same time, it's my biggest worry that they will continue on the AI and pollute the project with too much junk. I gotta trust the smart minds behind it will find a way to balance this trend.
Totally. I think Zed has its own value proposition. That's why I never put them close to other editors like Cursor at the beginning.
Lately, I started putting it together due to all the AI excitement. People try it because of the AI capabilities to find an IDE that works for them.
I hope Zed continues providing new amazing features in all the areas.
> Windsurf (OpenAI tried to get it)
And Google killed it.