VS Code is free and open source. Zed's editor — including its real-time collaboration — is free. JetBrains is the one with a real bill: individual IDEs run $79–199/year (first year), the All Products Pack is $299 (dropping to $179/year long-term).
| Editor cost | AI | |
|---|---|---|
| VS Code | free (MIT) | Copilot Free, or Copilot Pro $10/mo |
| Zed | free, incl. collaboration | AI assistant add-on ~$10/mo |
| JetBrains | $79–299/yr (per IDE or the pack) | JetBrains AI Pro $10/mo (10 credits) |
The AI story matters more than the editor cost now, and there's a pattern: Zed's AI add-on, JetBrains AI Pro, and JetBrains' Junie agent all come in at $10/month or less, undercutting the $20 tier that [Cursor](/entry/cursor-vs-anthropic-which-pricing-model-fits-your-ai-powered-workflow) and the other AI-first editors share. So "AI editor" doesn't have to mean $20.
VS Code stays the budget default — free forever, the largest extension ecosystem, and Copilot at $10 if you want AI. Zed is the performance play: written in Rust, dramatically faster to start and to render than VS Code, with collaboration built in, and a cheap AI add-on. JetBrains is the expensive one, and what you pay for is the deepest language-specific tooling — refactoring, static analysis, framework awareness — that no free editor fully matches for languages like Java, Kotlin, or complex Python.
Most developers: VS Code, add Copilot if you want AI. Care about editor speed and want cheap AI: Zed. Working in a language where JetBrains'深 refactoring and analysis genuinely save you hours: pay for the relevant IDE or the pack — and note the long-term price is much lower than year one.