Zee Lightning-Fast Terminal Text Editor

Ever felt that urge to work productively in the terminal, but standard editors are either too slow or require a steep learning curve? Meet Zee — a modern editor that reimagines code editing in the console.

What is Zee?

Zee is a text editor built for those who value speed and efficiency. Written in Rust, it inherits the Emacs philosophy while offering:

• Lightning-fast performance (up to 100 FPS while editing)
• Modern technologies like Tree-sitter for code analysis
• Convenient Emacs-like keybindings

By the way, the developers call it "experimental", but based on its functionality, it's a fairly mature tool.

Three reasons to try Zee right now

1. Speed comes first

   • Cursor rendering and edits take less than 10ms
   • Asynchronous syntax parsing and file operations
   • Buffers based on an efficient B-tree rope implementation (via the ropey library)

2. Smart code handling

   • Tree-sitter for AST construction and syntax highlighting
   • Support for files up to 1 million lines
   • Built-in real-time code validation

3. Comfortable interface

   • Multi-buffer support and window splitting
   • Fast file search with fuzzy highlighting
   • Change history as a tree (undo/redo tree)

How does it work technically?

Zee is built on several key technologies:

• Rust — provides safety and performance
• Tree-sitter — powerful parser for code analysis
• Ropey — efficient data structure for text manipulation
• ripgrep — ultra-fast file search

Interestingly, all resource-intensive operations (parsing, file operations) are moved to separate async threads, ensuring interface smoothness.

Who will Zee be especially useful for?

1. Developers working via SSH — lightweight yet powerful editor for remote sessions
2. Terminal tool enthusiasts — alternative to Vim/Emacs with modern features
3. Rust developers — great example of practical language application
4. Those working with large files — thanks to optimizations, Zee handles massive logs and dumps with ease

How to get started?

Installation via Cargo (Rust package manager):

cargo install --locked zee

For system clipboard support:

cargo install --locked --features system-clipboard zee

On Linux, additional dependencies will be required:

sudo apt install xorg-dev libxcb-shape0-dev libxcb-xfixes0-dev

Personal experience

After a week of using Zee, I particularly appreciated:

• Interface smoothness — truly no lag even during active editing
• Convenient Emacs-like keybindings (though it takes time to get used to)
• Quality syntax highlighting via Tree-sitter

Verdict: is it worth trying?

Zee is a great choice if you:

• Want a modern terminal editor without legacy code
• Value speed and interface responsiveness
• Are ready to learn Emacs-like keybindings

The project is actively developing and already offers a unique combination of performance and functionality. For Rust developers, it's also an excellent example of practical language application in a real project.

Give it a try and let us know in the comments how Zee compares to your current editor!