Zed DeltaDB
Ranked 10 of 26 version control systems by recommenders
Praised as a fresh take on rewinding edits between commits that has saved people from accidental resets. Critics say it mainly helps AI agents and ties you to Zed's harness.
Praised as a fresh take on rewinding edits between commits that has saved people from accidental resets. Critics say it mainly helps AI agents and ties you to Zed's harness.
41 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 21
- criticize it
- 20
- approval share
- 51%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 21 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1 recommender for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, 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
Looks promising, team seems competent
“Looks like a great feature/product/functionality”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “Zed DeltaDB” “the features being touted sound really promising”
Comment from 6 Aug 2026 in “Zed DeltaDB” “Glad someone competent is working on it.”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “Zed DeltaDB” - Comment from 6 Aug 2026 in “Zed DeltaDB”
- Comment from 6 Aug 2026 in “Zed DeltaDB”
Rewind between commits recovers lost edits
“I think there is a ton of value of being able to rewind in between commits.”
Comment from 6 Aug 2026 in “Zed DeltaDB” “This local history has saved my bacon on occasion.”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “Zed DeltaDB” “This saved me from accidental resets in the past.”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “Zed DeltaDB” Novel direction beyond the editor
“this is interesting to me and moves Zed towards something that is more than 'just' an IDE”
Comment from 6 Aug 2026 in “Zed DeltaDB” “I think is not a bad bet trying to innovate in the LLM-coding space.”
Comment from 6 Aug 2026 in “Zed DeltaDB” “Now this DeltaDB goes way beyond that”
Comment from 6 Aug 2026 in “Zed DeltaDB” Links agent sessions to code changes
“This feels very useful for training agents but almost completely useless to humans?”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “Zed DeltaDB” “I love the idea of correlating the agent sessions to the changes”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “Zed DeltaDB”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Keystroke tracking seen as creepy
“Systematically reconstructing a timeline of every keystroke that went into a project, then immortalizing this timeline into a VCS, that's the creepy part.”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “Zed DeltaDB” “interesting concept to toy with. I'd pay more attention to "micro commits" as the idea more than the keylogger”
Comment from 11 Jun 2026 in “Software Is Made Between Commits” “gives micro-managers the data they need to micro-manage you”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “Zed DeltaDB” Locks users to Zed harness
“it actually forces you to use their editor/agent harness which is a no go for me”
Comment from 18 Sep 2026 in “Replacing Pull Requests with Delta” “it actually forces you to use their editor/agent harness”
Comment from 18 Sep 2026 in “Replacing Pull Requests with Delta” Mostly useful for agents, not humans
“This feels very useful for training agents but almost completely useless to humans?”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “Zed DeltaDB” “Not convinced DeltaDB is useful for humans directly but assume new and interesting interfaces can arise from the abstractions it provides.”
Comment from 11 Jun 2026 in “Software Is Made Between Commits” Seen as AI slop and hype
“well polished slop, but ultimately slop at the end of the day”
Comment from 4 Sep 2026 in “Xanadu was waiting for agents” “It's obviously AI copy, and a huge negative signal”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “Zed DeltaDB” “It's not just a step, it's a leap towards real productivity that your agents will actually use!”
Comment from 6 Aug 2026 in “Zed DeltaDB”
Other version control systems people recommend
The four most recommended other version control systems, 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.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Git | 814 | 503 | 62% | 13 | 15 yrs42 owners | — |
| Jujutsu (jj) | 335 | 106 | 76% | 13 | 1 yr21 owners | Approved |
| Mercurial | 121 | 43 | 74% | 12 | 19 yrs7 owners | Approved |
| jj (Jujutsu) | 115 | 37 | 76% | 12 | 1 yr7 owners | Approved |
| Zed DeltaDBThis page | 21 | 20 | 51% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
39 of the 42 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“it actually forces you to use their editor/agent harness which is a no go for me”
“it actually forces you to use their editor/agent harness”
“if it was lightweight and unopinionated about how it integrated into my workflow”
“well polished slop, but ultimately slop at the end of the day”
“This looks very promising.”
“I think is not a bad bet trying to innovate in the LLM-coding space.”
“the features being touted sound really promising”
“They're a VC backed company, they aren't building for the user at all.”
“this is interesting to me and moves Zed towards something that is more than 'just' an IDE”
“Now this DeltaDB goes way beyond that”
“i would not outright dismiss this attempt”
“the post itself is corp speak bs”
“I think there is a ton of value of being able to rewind in between commits.”
“Perhaps this is pessimistic but I don't have faith the team are going to deliver anything groundbreaking”
“Well this will certainly be an interesting test of your unbounded faith in a singularity based on word generators.”
“A version control system that I cannot host myself?”
“It's not just a step, it's a leap towards real productivity that your agents will actually use!”
“the deltas are exactly the type of “basics” Zed is built on”
“It's obviously AI copy, and a huge negative signal”
“A total nightmare and imo every dev should push back using this stuff”
“Its only purpose is for training LLMs”
“This landing page is not good. It's mired in out-of-context jargon and implementation detail.”
“Systematically reconstructing a timeline of every keystroke that went into a project, then immortalizing this timeline into a VCS, that's the creepy part.”
“This feels very useful for training agents but almost completely useless to humans?”
“This saved me from accidental resets in the past.”
“I love the idea of correlating the agent sessions to the changes”
“since you can iterate from any branch you have inginite try and retry possibilities”
“gives micro-managers the data they need to micro-manage you”
“It's also delusional to think you can find that one edit that was really useful but you forgot to commit”
“This local history has saved my bacon on occasion.”
“Sounds like a side-effect of being VC-backed.”
“A non-existent problem that nobody asked to solve”
“Glad someone competent is working on it.”
“Looks like a great feature/product/functionality”
“First of all, that feels intrusive.”
“interesting concept to toy with. I'd pay more attention to "micro commits" as the idea more than the keylogger”
“Not convinced DeltaDB is useful for humans directly but assume new and interesting interfaces can arise from the abstractions it provides.”
“They are also proposing a new version control database, which makes adoption and interoperability an even harder task.”
“I thought that was somewhat misleading”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.