These lightweight editors are faster than VS Code, but Microsoft's 100,000 extensions keep me hostage

Published Jul 27, 2026, 2:30 PM EDT Korbin is a Linux system administrator who spends most of his time in a terminal figuring out how things actually work. Over the last decade he's written hundreds of articles about Linux configuration, troubleshooting weird problems, and using open-source tools in the real world. He also works a lot with Windows systems and networking, especially in mixed environments where things don't always behave the way the documentation says they should. Writing things down is how he makes sense of it all and hopefully saves someone else a few hours. Anyone on the prowl for a lightweight alternative to Electron editors has had a lot of options over the last couple of years. The three I've been eyeing are Zed, Helix, and Lapce. All three of them are open source, and they're noticeably snappier than VS Code, especially on machines with modest hardware. I gave each editor a trial run on my PC for at least two weeks as my primary tool. The first few days of using a new app can be a bit uncomfortable while getting used to it, so I wanted to make sure I gave each one a thorough test. But every time I start getting used to one, I end up drifting back to VS Code. What always drags me back is the ecosystem. Microsoft's marketplace passed 100,000 extensions, and the most useful ones are licensed so that only Microsoft's own build can install them. Even though the editing workflow feels good on the other software, VS Code's broad ecosystem makes it tough to beat. Every one of these beats VS Code on speed But that was never very hard to do Of the three that I thoroughly tested, Zed came the closest to making me switch permanently. It's written in Rust, and the UI uses GPU acceleration. Contrast that to VS Code and other Electron-built editors, which are essentially running a browser engine. Zed uses around 180MB of RAM when it's idle, compared to VS Code's 650MB. Cold startups happen faster, and Zed's now sporting built-in AI that supports an API key or a local Ollama endpoint. Helix feels more like the antithesis to VS Code, but it solved a problem I created for myself with Neovim. My config file had grown several hundred lines long and became laborious to manage myself. Helix comes with a bunch of essentials, like LSP, Tree-sitter, multiple selections, and DAP (Debug Adapter Protocol) support working out of the box. It's nice to not deal with a plugin manager for once, and I don't need a customized init file the way I do with Neovim. There's an unmistakable learning curve, but having prior Vim experience and running the hx --tutor helped a lot in getting me up to speed. When it comes to responsiveness, Lapce takes the cake. It always opens instantly, and it's hard to overwhelm it. It's written in Rust and features GPU acceleration in Floem, a UI framework the project built especially for use in their own editor. Despite being exceptionally lightweight, it has most of what I need, including Tree-sitter dynamic library support, proxy support, and glob patterns for hiding files I don't want cluttering the tree. Modal support is there for the times I want a more Vim-like experience, but it can also be toggled off. Considering the project has only a fraction of the funding and headcount of most competitors, it holds up remarkably well. The most immediately obvious thing that separates these editors from VS Code is that they handle abuse without a sweat. I can open a 500MB log file in any of them; meanwhile, VS Code treats the task like a personal insult. On an 8GB laptop, it's almost imperative to break out one of these lightweight editors in place of VS Code, unless you don't mind waiting just to edit files. Unfortunately, these strengths don't play a huge role in how I choose which editor to open on Monday morning. Zed Zed is a lightweight editor built in Rust. The extension marketplace is the selling point The raw number of available extensions sounds like a marketing pitch until you break it down. Numbers from Microsoft reveal that there are 36,000 extensions for specific programming languages and 9,400 debuggers. For comparison, Zed's total extension catalog totals just over 1,000. Helix's Steel plugin system has been in development for years and still hasn't landed in a stable release, and Lapce's catalog is smaller yet. Most of those 100,000 extensions are junk, sure, but plenty of people are locked into VS Code for the obscure vendor SDKs or the specific linter that their employer mandates. A handful of extensions hold me hostage personally. Remote-SSH lets me open a project on a home lab box and get full IntelliSense, debugging, and terminal access as though the files were local, because VS Code installs a small server on the far end and does most of the intensive work on the remote machine. I've also grown to rely on other extensions, like Dev Containers, Jupyter, Pylance, and the C/C++ toolchain. Most of my real work happens on remote machines, and nothing else can bridge the gap between my local PC and a remote machine the way that VS Code does. Visual Studio Code Visual Studio Code or VS Code is an IDE developed by Microsoft for Windows, Mac, and Linux to write, edit, format, run, and debug code. Nobody actually uses thousands of extensions So is any of this a real advantage? The 100,000 extension milestone isn't quite as impressive as it sounds. Most developers probably install a few dozen extensions maximum, and a large share of that marketplace is abandoned, redundant, or just slowing down someone's editor. Zed ships natively with Git blame, AI, and collaboration, all of which would require separate installation inside of VS Code. Seen from that angle, a gigantic marketplace looks less like strength and more like a symptom of a thin default editor that outsourced its features to volunteers. Alternative editors start seeming like a solid replacement until you need an obscure extension. VS Code has something the others can't rival yet: coverage for all the niche situations. There's a portability argument too: my extension list syncs to a fresh install and behaves identically on someone else's machine. Other editors require me to rebuild my config from scratch, which I'm in no mood to do right after a fresh OS installation. Being fast wasn't the problem to solve Zed and Lapce can compete directly with VS Code when it comes to performance. However, VS Code's decade-old ecosystem is protected by a marketplace license, and no amount of Rust can hold a candle to that. I'll keep Zed installed and resort to it whenever the current project doesn't require something bulkier, but VS Code keeps getting opened whenever there's actual work to do.