AI IDEs
Zed alternatives
Zed (Zed Industries) belongs to the “AI IDEs” category of the OrigoTech directory, which lists 3 other tools. The table repeats the information from their tool pages; each row links to the tool page and to the head-to-head comparison with Zed.
According to their tool pages, among these 3 tools: 3 free or freemium and 3 with MCP support.
Tool page data · Verified
The alternatives at a glance
| Compared tools | Vendor | Pricing | License | Platforms | MCP support | Context window | Comparison |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cursor | Anysphere | Freemium | Proprietary | Desktop, CLI, Web | Yes | Depends on the selected model | Cursor vs Zed |
| Devin Desktop (formerly Windsurf) | Cognition | Freemium | — | Desktop, CLI | Yes | Depends on the selected model | Devin Desktop (formerly Windsurf) vs Zed |
| Qoder | Alibaba Cloud | Freemium | — | Desktop, IDE, CLI, Mobile | Yes | — | Qoder vs Zed |
“—”: information not filled in on the tool page.
What sets each alternative apart from Zed
Cursor
- Zed is published by Zed Industries, Cursor by Anysphere.
- Only Zed is open source.
- License: Open source for Zed, Proprietary for Cursor.
- Platforms only Cursor offers: CLI, Web.
Devin Desktop (formerly Windsurf)
- Zed is published by Zed Industries, Devin Desktop (formerly Windsurf) by Cognition.
- Platforms only Devin Desktop (formerly Windsurf) offers: CLI.
- Only Zed has a repository on our GitHub repos page (91,957 stars, as of October 20, 2026).
- Plans listed on the tool pages: 3 for Zed, 5 for Devin Desktop (formerly Windsurf).
Devin Desktop (formerly Windsurf) vs Zed →
Qoder
- Zed is published by Zed Industries, Qoder by Alibaba Cloud.
- Platforms only Qoder offers: IDE, CLI, Mobile.
- Operating systems only Qoder supports: HarmonyOS.
- Only Zed has a repository on our GitHub repos page (91,957 stars, as of October 20, 2026).
In the neighbouring “Coding agents” category
Tools from a related category, without a head-to-head comparison (different categories):
- Claude Code (Anthropic)
- Codex (OpenAI)
- GitHub Copilot (GitHub)
- OpenCode 2.0 (OpenCode (open source))
- Aider (Aider (open source))
- Cline (Cline Bot Inc.)
- Junie (JetBrains)
Sources
- Zed: pricing
- GitHub: zed-industries/zed repository (GPL and Apache licenses)
- GitHub: release v1.24.4
- Cursor: enterprise offering (50,000+ enterprises)
- Cursor: Leader in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant
- Cursor: pricing
- Cursor: terms of service
- Cognition: Windsurf acquisition
- Devin: Devin Desktop FAQ
- Devin: pricing
- Gartner: 2026 Magic Quadrant (Virtualization Review)
- Qoder: pricing