Zed Project Structure
The high-performance, multiplayer code editor. A massive Rust codebase built on top of a custom GPU-accelerated UI framework (GPUI).
Updated 2025-12-30
Project Directory
zed/
crates/
Core Workspace Crates (100+)
gpui/
GPU-accelerated UI engine
editor/
Main text editor logic
zed/
Application entry point
language/
LSP & Treesitter support
collab/
Collaboration backend server
assets/
Fonts, icons, and themes
extensions/
WASM-based extension system
Cargo.toml
Workspace definition
Cargo.lock
Repository Info
- Repository-zed-industries/zed
- Stars-40k+
- License-GPL / AGPL / Apache
- Last Analyzed-December 2025
Tech Stack
- Language-Rust
- UI Engine-GPUI (Custom Rust framework)
- Graphics API-Metal / Vulkan / Direct3D
- Text Engine-Rope (Custom implementation)
- Parsing-Tree-sitter
Architecture Notes
Zed is built for speed. It avoids the overhead of a browser-based UI (like Electron) by using **GPUI**, a framework that renders directly via the GPU. The codebase is a massive **Cargo Workspace** where every major feature is its own crate. This enables modularity and slightly better incremental compilation times for such a large project.
Key Directories
- crates/gpui/-The foundational UI framework. It handles layouts, rendering, and window events in a way that feels like React but runs at native speeds.
- crates/editor/-Contains the actual 'multiplayer' editor logic. It manages multiple cursors, selections, and efficient text buffer manipulations using Ropes.
- crates/collab/-The server-side code that powers Zed's collaboration features. It's also written in Rust and handles real-time sync between editors.
Why This Structure?
Zed is the state-of-the-art for Rust application architecture. It shows how to build a world-class GUI application using modern systems programming, avoiding the pitfalls of hybrid web-tech approaches.
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