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Zed Delta

Ranked 7 of 9 AI code editors by recommenders

People recommend it for keeping context from agent conversations, with annotation and sharing features and a solid alpha experience. Critics question the value of the sharing focus and warn of lock-in.

People recommend it for keeping context from agent conversations, with annotation and sharing features and a solid alpha experience. Critics question the value of the sharing focus and warn of lock-in.

17 people gave an opinion

recommend it
9
criticize it
8
approval share
53%
Each figure is one person. RecommendsCriticizes

Recommended in 1 of 13 months

  1. November 2025: not recommended
  2. December 2025: not recommended
  3. January 2026: not recommended
  4. February 2026: not recommended
  5. March 2026: not recommended
  6. April 2026: not recommended
  7. May 2026: not recommended
  8. June 2026: not recommended
  9. July 2026: not recommended
  10. August 2026: recommended
  11. September 2026: not recommended
  12. October 2026: not recommended
  13. November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)

Why it doesn’t carry the badge

  • 9 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
  • 1.1 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
  • Recommended in 1 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.

The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works

What people say about it

The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.

Why people recommend it

Each mark is one comment

  • Annotating and keeping agent conversation context

    “This is a really cool idea. So much context is lost within agent conversations these days”

    Comment from 13 Aug 2026 in “Zed: Delta”

    “Directly annotating parts of the convo is the feature that really unlocked Delta for me”

    Comment from 12 Aug 2026 in “Zed: Delta”
  • Solid, well-regarded experience so far

    “It's a solid experience so far (have been testing the alpha).”

    Comment from 12 Aug 2026 in “Zed: Delta”

    “It's very good, especially compared to tools like Conductor.”

    Comment from 12 Aug 2026 in “Zed: Delta”

    “it's actually a cool feature”

    Comment from 13 Aug 2026 in “Zed: Delta”

What people warn about

Each mark is one comment

  • Little value in niche sharing

    “I can't see the value in keeping the work-in-progress artifacts. The sharing aspect is niche”

    Comment from 13 Aug 2026 in “Zed: Delta”

    “I don't really see much value in this anymore.”

    Comment from 12 Aug 2026 in “Zed: Delta”
  • Seen as wrong direction

    “it looks like the mix of the worst parts of Google Docs and Slack”

    Comment from 12 Aug 2026 in “Zed: Delta”

    “this looks like a step in the wrong direction”

    Comment from 12 Aug 2026 in “Zed: Delta”

Other AI code editors people recommend

The four most recommended other AI code editors, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.

Zed Delta compared with 4 alternatives
ProductRecommendCriticizeApprovalMonthsOwnedBadge
Cursor85382051%131 yr65 owners—
Google Antigravity33757637%131 mo26 owners—
Windsurf422761%10——
AWS Kiro363749%11——
Zed DeltaThis page9853%1——
See all 9 AI code editors, ranked

What people said

17 of the 19 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.

“This is a really cool idea. So much context is lost within agent conversations these days”

RecommendsComment from 13 Aug 2026 in “Zed: Delta”

“it's actually a cool feature”

RecommendsComment from 13 Aug 2026 in “Zed: Delta”

“We can just work together, talking and writing code.”

RecommendsComment from 13 Aug 2026 in “Zed: Delta”

“I can't see the value in keeping the work-in-progress artifacts. The sharing aspect is niche”

MixedComment from 13 Aug 2026 in “Zed: Delta”

“it looks like the mix of the worst parts of Google Docs and Slack”

CriticizesComment from 12 Aug 2026 in “Zed: Delta”

“How would building a new limited text editor be the best possible experience?”

CriticizesComment from 12 Aug 2026 in “Zed: Delta”

“It will cause the community to fail because VC dev tooling is unsustainable”

CriticizesComment from 12 Aug 2026 in “Zed: Delta”

“honestly still not exactly clear to me who/what this tool is meant for”

CriticizesComment from 12 Aug 2026 in “Zed: Delta”

“this looks like a step in the wrong direction”

CriticizesComment from 12 Aug 2026 in “Zed: Delta”

“So it's already web accessible, and can naturally extend to mobile platforms as well”

RecommendsComment from 12 Aug 2026 in “Zed: Delta”

“Would be cool to have a single-user ADE tool like that from the Zed folks”

RecommendsComment from 12 Aug 2026 in “Zed: Delta”

“Directly annotating parts of the convo is the feature that really unlocked Delta for me”

RecommendsComment from 12 Aug 2026 in “Zed: Delta”

“It's a solid experience so far (have been testing the alpha).”

RecommendsComment from 12 Aug 2026 in “Zed: Delta”

“It's very good, especially compared to tools like Conductor.”

RecommendsComment from 12 Aug 2026 in “Zed: Delta”

“this looks like it'll come with some fairly significant lock-in”

MixedComment from 12 Aug 2026 in “Zed: Delta”

“These two features seem compelling, and I understand they're even compatible with other coding harnesses.”

MixedComment from 12 Aug 2026 in “Zed: Delta”

“I don't really see much value in this anymore.”

CriticizesComment from 12 Aug 2026 in “Zed: Delta”

Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.