Developer Tooling #008

Welcome to Developer Tooling #008, a newsletter enhancement for Freek Van der Herten's popular and high-quality newsletter, geared towards Software Engineering, Laravel, PHP, and other related topics.

This month we're covering code editors and IDEs.

Zed

Zed is a free, open source, Rust-native code editor with GPU-accelerated rendering, built-in LSP and Tree-sitter, debugger, Git, remote development, AI assistance, and real-time multiplayer editing.

• what we like: very fast native UI; first-class multiplayer collaboration built in; strong integrated AI features (assistant panel, agentic editing, edit prediction, custom models like Zeta, MCP support); solid remote development and multibuffer workflows; modern Rust codebase that feels future proof.
• what we don't like: ecosystem and extension catalog are still small compared to VS Code; some collaboration and AI capabilities depend on Zed cloud services and GitHub sign-in; freemium limits on predictive edits and AI usage; product is evolving quickly, so workflows and UX can shift under you.

Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code (VSCode) is Microsoft’s cross-platform, Electron-based editor with an IDE feel, a huge extension ecosystem, integrated debugger, Git and terminal support, and deep AI integration through GitHub Copilot and related tooling.

• what we like: ubiquitous and battle tested; enormous extension marketplace for almost every language and framework; excellent debugging, Git integration, and remote development (SSH, containers, WSL, Codespaces); strong Copilot and AI Toolkit integration; great documentation and community coverage for nearly any stack.
• what we don't like: Electron footprint plus heavy extension setups can make it slow and memory hungry; telemetry and licensing are more complex than a pure FOSS editor; configuration surface area is huge and easy to over customize into fragility; advanced AI features are increasingly tied to paid Microsoft and GitHub offerings.

Antigravity

Antigravity is Google’s new agent-first IDE, built as a fork of VS Code and tightly integrated with Gemini 3 Pro and other models. It lets autonomous AI agents plan, edit, run, and verify code directly inside the editor, terminal, and browser, producing verifiable artifacts like task plans, diffs, screenshots, and recordings.

• what we like: designed around multi agent workflows from day one, with a Manager view that feels like mission control for your AI workers; clear verification model via artifacts instead of opaque tool call logs; multi model support across Gemini, Claude, and open models; familiar VS Code style editor so existing shortcuts and habits mostly transfer; currently free public preview with generous rate limits, which makes it low friction to evaluate.
• what we don't like: very early preview so there are rough edges, missing integrations, and potential instability; agents with terminal and browser control raise security and governance questions for serious teams; future pricing and licensing are unknown; extension compatibility and long term ecosystem story are not fully clear yet; switching from direct coding to agent management is a nontrivial mindset shift and will not fit every developer.

Lapce

Lapce is a modern, open source code editor written in Rust with a native GPU accelerated UI, built-in LSP, Tree-sitter based syntax highlighting, remote development, Vim style modal editing, and a WASI based plugin system.

• what we like: very fast native experience with snappy startup and input; GPU rendering and Rust core give it good performance headroom; remote development is built in and can be paired with the Lapdev platform; first class Vim like modal editing with no plugins required; WASI plugin architecture allows writing extensions in any language that compiles to WASI; open source and community driven.
• what we don't like: plugin ecosystem is still relatively small compared to VS Code; UI and UX are more minimal and can feel less polished; some workflows require manual configuration and lack a smooth out of the box experience; smaller community means fewer guides and integrations for niche stacks.

Pulsar

Pulsar is a community led, hyper hackable text editor that continues the Atom lineage, with cross platform support, a built-in package manager, and IDE like language server integrations.

• what we like: essentially keeps the Atom experience alive with active community maintenance; leverages a large existing ecosystem of Atom and Pulsar packages and themes; very customizable through familiar web technologies like JavaScript, HTML, and CSS; solid Git integration, multi pane layout, and file tree make it a comfortable general purpose editor.
• what we don't like: Electron base means higher resource usage and slower performance on very large projects; AI and agentic workflows are mostly add ons through third party packages rather than a core focus; roadmap and sustainability depend on volunteer community capacity; some older Atom era packages are unmaintained or flaky.

Cursor

Cursor is an AI first IDE forked from VS Code, focused on repo scale understanding, powerful autocomplete, inline edits, and agent like workflows, with features like smart rewrite, project wide refactors, integrated chat, and Bugbot for automated debugging.

• what we like: tight AI integration across the editor with multiple levels of autonomy, from small inline edits to large refactors; strong codebase indexing that lets AI operate on the whole repository, not just the current file; good UX for exploratory or vibe coding and for PR review, with integrations into services like GitHub and Slack; Bugbot style automated debugging that can surface subtle logic or security issues; still close enough to VS Code that most keybindings and workflows carry over.
• what we don't like: proprietary and subscription based, with higher costs at heavier usage tiers; heavy reliance on remote services and code indexing that some organizations will reject on security or compliance grounds; AI centric workflow can encourage over reliance on generated code if teams are not disciplined; extension ecosystem is narrower than stock VS Code and tied to Cursor’s release cadence and choices.