Reviewers mostly see Zed as a fast, lightweight editor that feels simpler and less bloated than VS Code or other Electron-based tools. They praise its responsive UI, clean design, low memory use, and strong day-to-day feel, with several saying it works especially well for Rust and TypeScript. Users also like the built-in collaboration and AI features, though some say the AI help is good rather than best-in-class. The main caveats are a thinner extension ecosystem, incomplete Vim support, and uneven language tooling, especially for Python.