The Register / Coding agents / Zed (Agent Panel)

Zed (Agent Panel)

Name: Zed (Agent Panel)
Author: Zed Industries

Zed is a Rust code editor whose Agent Panel runs a built-in coding agent that reads, edits and runs commands in a project, with per-tool permissions and an OS-level sandbox on by default since v1.14. Through the Agent Client Protocol (ACP) it also hosts external agents such as Claude Agent, Codex, Gemini CLI, OpenCode and Cursor. Since April 2026 it can run several agent threads in parallel, each optionally on its own Git worktree. The editor is GPL-3.0 open source; hosted models require a Zed account, while bring-your-own-key and external agents are free.

zed.dev Source repository Docs Pricing Add to compare

What reviewers and users praise

Can run and switch between several agents (built-in and ACP external agents) in one editor window
Parallel agent threads with worktree isolation are praised by users moving from single-thread agent workflows
Fast, lightweight editor that users keep even when they run agents elsewhere
Free bring-your-own-key use and external agents on the $0 plan

What they criticise

Agent UI and parallel-agent layout described as confusing by several users after the April 2026 changes
Built-in agent seen by some reviewers and users as less capable or less turnkey than Cursor, Claude Code or OpenCode
ACP-hosted external agents reported as buggy or limited (buffer not refreshing, lost LSP access, never-ending runs)
Diff/code-review tooling for reviewing agent output considered insufficient by some users

Rating certificate · AW/26-09/04426 Sept 2026

73of 100

Zed (Agent Panel)

Zed Industries · Coding agents

No. 3 of 16 in categoryhigh confidenceTrust AOpen source

Adoption93

Experts73

Crowd46

Experts vs the crowdcrowd cooler by 27

Experts73

Crowd46

Price	Free, paid from $10
Use it via	Desktop app
Runs on	macos, linux, windows
Licence	GPL-3.0-or-later
Updated	Evidence collected 26 Sept 2026

How the rating was worked out

Weights for Coding agents: adoption 35%, experts 40%, crowd 25%. Pillars without enough evidence are left out and the others re-weighted. The method.

Adoption & momentumweight 35%	93	GitHub stars `91k` → 90 · `46` releases in 90 days → 100 reach × 0.7 + momentum × 0.3
Expertsindependent reviews · weight 40%	73	8 independent reviews (5 positive · 3 mixed · 0 negative), averaged toward 50 for small samples.
Crowdcommunity sample · weight 25%	46	29 dated posts from reddit, hackernews, github: 10 positive · 6 mixed · 13 negative (positive + ½ mixed) ÷ n, averaged toward 50 for small samples
Rating	73	high confidence (3 of 3 pillars, 29 community posts).

Evidence checks. 1 item removed: date does not match the source (1). 1 post over the three-per-thread limit not counted. How evidence is checked.

Editorial adjustment. Incident-history re-grade under methodology revision 2 (see the trust section).

Trust & safety

Seven dimensions graded A–D from documented facts. Overall: A.

Permission model

Terminal and fetch tools run in an OS-enforced sandbox enabled by default for all users from v1.14 (Aug 2026); default rules forbid writes outside project directories, writes to .git and network requests, with per-request escalation prompts. Separate tool-permission rules (always_allow / always_confirm / always_deny) are documented. Windows sandboxing only for WSL shells. source

Data access scope

Sandbox scopes agent writes to project directories; tool permissions match on file paths and commands (e.g. deny .env); Threads Sidebar lets users choose which folders/repos each thread can access, with optional per-thread worktrees. source

Data storage

Editor and agent run locally; BYOK keys stored in the system keychain; Zed states it does not store prompts regardless of plan unless the user shares or opts in. Hosted-model requests pass through Zed to providers. source

Data retention & training

No training on prompts or code by default; provider agreements require zero data retention for Zed-hosted inference except Anthropic covered models (retained at least 30 days for trust and safety). Opt-in only for feedback/edit-prediction data. source

Incident history (24 months)

12 GitHub security advisories published Aug 2025-May 2026, 11 rated high or critical, several in the agent itself (agent RCE, symlink escape in agent file tools, terminal-permission allowlist bypasses). All list patched versions and were publicly disclosed. Regraded from D: Revision 2: serious issues that were each fixed and publicly disclosed grade C; D is kept for unresolved issues or slow or undisclosed fixes. source

Compliance

Zed's SOC2 page states it is working toward SOC 2 Type 1; the Zed for Business post (May 2026) says SOC 2 certification is in progress. No attestation published. source

Transparency

Editor and agent crates are GPL-3.0-or-later on GitHub; public stable and preview release notes. source

The experts

8 named independent reviews found; dated reviews from the last 12 months are scored.

mixed
Yes, Zed is ready for serious daily use, but it’s not the most turnkey option.Matt Abrams (Builder.io blog) · 22 Jan 2026 · builder.io
positive
builtin agent harness is basic but nice with the ability to follow the agent around as it modifies filesE.G. Jones (braw.dev) · 6 Apr 2026 · braw.dev
positive
the first major code editor to make multi-agent orchestration a first-class primitive rather than something you cobble together.Developers Digest · 22 Apr 2026 · developersdigest.tech
mixed
If your workflow leans heavily on AI-generated code (not just completions, but whole-feature drafting), the performance trade-off flips against you.Kunal Ganglani (kunalganglani.com) · 11 Jul 2026 · kunalganglani.com
mixed
So my overall opinion on Zed is I like it. I wanted to like it more because I do really appreciate how fastYour Average Tech Bro (YouTube) · 25 Feb 2026 · youtube.com
positive
For the longest time, nothing ticked every box, until I discovered Zed. Honestly, I was impressed.Jan Marshal (YouTube) · 21 Dec 2025 · youtube.com
positive
So that's really nice and I have found the AI stuff to be good.Scott Tolinski (Syntax, YouTube) · 17 Dec 2025 · youtube.com
positive
So, the point isn't look how much AI it has. The point is it helps and then it gets out of its way.Better Stack (YouTube) · 4 Feb 2026 · youtube.com

The crowd

29 coded posts from reddit, hackernews, github.

10 positive6 mixed13 negative

negative
Zed AI doesn’t feel as good as vscode copilot or opencode with the same model.r/ZedEditor · 15 Dec 2025 · reddit.com
negative
However the AI agent panel on the right is completely opposite of this and needs plenty of improvements to really be on-par with rest of the components in Zed.r/ZedEditor · 4 Feb 2026 · reddit.com
negative
I found the Zed quite handy in the beginning. But meanwhile I stopped using it. It went fairly complex without bringing the value of the externals.r/ZedEditor · 8 Mar 2026 · reddit.com
positive
it was the key tool to 'get it' (coming from Cursor) when going from single threaded agentic dev to parallel agentic dev.HN: Parallel agents in Zed · 23 Apr 2026 · news.ycombinator.com
negative
Zed’s agent ui is the most confusing ui I have ever seen.HN: Parallel agents in Zed · 23 Apr 2026 · news.ycombinator.com
negative
I gave zed agent another shot today, and it couldn't run bash commands, so back to opencode I go.HN: Parallel agents in Zed · 23 Apr 2026 · news.ycombinator.com
positive
This update gives me everything I need to finally leave Cursor & VS Code behind! I'm loving it!r/ZedEditor (Parallel Agents launch thread) · 23 Apr 2026 · reddit.com
mixed
the agent-centric direction is right, but I quickly went back to Codex (the Mac app, not the CLI).r/ZedEditor (Parallel Agents launch thread) · 23 Apr 2026 · reddit.com

Pricing

As published, checked 26 Sept 2026.

Plan	Price	Notes
Personal	Free	2,000 accepted edit predictions; unlimited use with your own API keys or external agents
Pro	$10 / monthly	Unlimited edit predictions, $5 of tokens included, usage-based billing beyond $5; 14-day free trial
Business	$30 / monthly	Per seat; org-wide AI model policies, data governance controls, RBAC, unified spend visibility

Recent changes

22 Apr 2026
Parallel agents: Threads Sidebar for multiple concurrent agent threads with optional worktree isolation source
29 Apr 2026
Zed 1.0 released source
6 May 2026
Zed for Business plan ($30/seat) with org AI policies and ZDR agreements source
5 Aug 2026
OS-level agent sandbox enabled by default from v1.14 source
16 Sept 2026
Delta (DeltaDB-based replacement for pull requests) enters public beta source

Ranked alongside

Other ranked entries in Coding agents.

Compare with the top two

OpenCodeAnomaly75

Claude CodeAnthropic73

GitHub CopilotGitHub (Microsoft)72

Codex (CLI and app)OpenAI71

Grok BuildSpaceXAI (formerly xAI)68

Sources

Every figure above traces to one of these, observed up to 26 Sept 2026.