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Pulsar vs Zed: catalog facts
Pulsar	Zed
Free The software is free under its open-source licence. Hosting, hardware and external…	Freemium The editor is free and open source. Zed's hosted AI plans are paid, and you can use your…
Windows, macOS, Linux	Windows, macOS, Linux
It revives the Atom package ecosystem with its own package registry, so the hackable editor and its plugins…	GPU-rendered and written in Rust, so it stays responsive under load Real-time collaborative editing and a shared terminal
It is still Electron-based and inherits Atom's memory use and startup time, with a much smaller maintainer team.	A much smaller extension ecosystem than VS Code Windows support arrived late and is still the least mature build
Downloadable app	Downloadable app
Open source	Open source
License: MIT	License: GPL-3.0-or-later
Not stated if an account is needed	No account needed
Not stated if it works offline	Works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 22, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 21, 2026

Catalog facts only. Anything “not stated” is unconfirmed. Check full listings for details.