Onlook vs Zed (2026): Which Vibe Coding App Is Better?

Both are popular AI code editors. Here is how Onlook and Zed stack up on price, strengths and weaknesses, and which one we would pick.

Onlook

Open-source visual editor for styling and editing React + Tailwind apps with AI

6.5 /10

Pricing: Freemium

Pros

Lets designers and developers edit a live React/Tailwind app directly in the rendered DOM, with changes written back to real code instead of a design file
Open source (Apache-2.0) and self-hostable, with a hosted version available if you don't want to run it yourself
Built-in branching for trying design variants, brand/token management, and comment-based collaboration for teams

Cons

Scoped to Next.js + Tailwind projects; not a general-purpose visual editor for other stacks
The public README doesn't name specific coding-agent integrations (e.g. Cursor, Copilot) beyond its own AI chat and MCP support, so agent compatibility is narro

Visit Onlook ↗

Zed

High-performance open-source editor with built-in agents and ACP support

8.0 /10

Pricing: Free plan, paid from $10/mo

Pros

Extremely fast native editor
Runs external agents like Claude Code via ACP
Open source

Cons

Smaller extension ecosystem than VS Code
Windows support is newer

Visit Zed ↗

Onlook vs Zed at a glance

	Onlook	Zed
Editor score	6.5 / 10	8.0 / 10
Pricing model	Freemium	Freemium
Starting price	Free	$10/mo
Reader upvotes	0	0
Best for	design-to-code, react, tailwindcss	editor, open source
Agent Skills support	No	Yes
Subagents support	No	No
MCP support	Yes	Yes
AGENTS.md support	No	Yes
Plugins support	No	No
Hooks support	No	No
Rules support	No	Yes
Agent skills in this directory	0	48
Subagents & agents in this directory	3	5
MCP servers in this directory	72	72

Our pick

Zed edges it with a score of 8.0 versus 6.5. Zed is the better fit if you value: extremely fast native editor, runs external agents like claude code via acp. Choose Onlook instead if you need: lets designers and developers edit a live react/tailwind app directly in the rendered dom, with changes written back to real code instead of a design file, open source (apache-2.0) and self-hostable, with a hosted version available if you don't want to run it yourself.