The 2025 State of Rust Survey dropped last week, and amid 7,156 responses lies a data point that should concern every editor developer: Zed, the Rust-built code editor, is officially eroding VSCode's userbase.
Not gradually. Not theoretically. The survey shows editors with agentic AI support are rising fastâand Zed is leading that charge.
The Numbers Don't Lie
From the survey (emphasis mine):
"The Zed editor did a remarkable jump upward in the preferences of our respondents... Editors with agentic support are also on the rise... and seems they are eroding the userbase of VSCode and IntelliJ, if we were to judge by the histogram."
This isn't speculation. It's 7,000+ developers voting with their keyboards.
But here's what makes this interesting for the Rust community: Zed is built in Rust. Not Electron. Not TypeScript. Rust. A language that's been called "too hard for mainstream adoption" is powering the editor that's now challenging the most dominant IDE in history.
Why Zed, Why Now
Zed isn't winning on nostalgia. It's winning on three fronts:
- Speed. Built on GPU-rendered text, it feels instantaneous. No Electron bloat, no spinning beachballs.
- AI-first architecture. Unlike VSCode where AI is a plugin, Zed baked AI into the core. Agent mode isn't an extensionâit's the operating model.
- Rust-native. Every millisecond of performance comes from the underlying language. The editor is written in the same language it asks developers to use.
The survey confirms what users have been feeling: the old model of "editor + AI plugins" is dead. The new model is "AI-native editor, with optional human."
What This Means for Developers
If you're a Rust developer, this matters for practical reasons:
- Your tooling is converging. The same language that powers your runtime is now powering your editor. Debugging Zed's internals teaches you patterns usable in your own code.
- The AI editor war just started. Zed's rise signals that the market is ready for editors where AI isn't an add-onâit's the primary interface. Expect Claude Code, Copilot, and others to follow this playbook.
- Performance is still a differentiator. In an age of "just ship it," Zed proves that speed sells. The survey shows compile times and resource usage remain top concerns. Editors that respect your machine win.
The Deeper Shift
Here's what the survey hints at but doesn't say explicitly: the definition of "coding" is changing.
When an editor can agentically refactor, write tests, or scaffold entire modules, the developer's job shifts from typing to reviewing. Zed leans into this harder than anyone else.
The Rust community has always been about precision, control, and understanding what your code actually does. Zed applies that same philosophy to the editing experience. It's not surprising that Rust developersâwho care about what happens at the metalâare leading the charge toward editors that respect the same principles.
The Takeaway
The 2025 Rust Survey isn't just about Rust the language. It's about Rust the ecosystem. And the ecosystem now includes an editor that's proving AI-native design beats AI-augmented design.
VSCode isn't dying tomorrow. But the direction of travel is clear: the future editor is fast, Rust-built, and AI-first.
Zed just showed us what that looks like.