Cydonia vs Zed's agent panel
Both run the same ACP agents from the registry. Zed is a code editor with an agent panel; Cydonia is a workspace around the agents, with sessions in panes, boards and articles.
Checked against each product's own site on
Zed and Cydonia are both ACP clients: they install agents from the same registry and talk to them the same way, so Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Cursor or pi behaves alike in either. The difference is what surrounds the agent. Zed puts it in a panel of a code editor; Cydonia puts it in a workspace of sessions, boards and articles.
| Cydonia | Zed | |
|---|---|---|
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0-or-later, with parts under Apache-2.0 |
| Platforms | macOS, Linux, Windows | macOS, Linux, Windows |
| Agents | Any agent in the ACP registry | Any agent in the ACP registry |
| What it is | A workspace for agents | A code editor |
| Several agents at once | Yes, a session per pane | Not checked |
| Boards and documents | Articles, boards and tables in .cydonia/ in the project |
No |
| Price | Free | Free for personal use, external agents included; Pro $10/month; Business $30/seat |
When to pick Zed
- You want to read and edit the code yourself in the same window the agent works in.
When to pick Cydonia
- You hand most of the editing to agents, and want a window built around their sessions rather than around files.
- You want work handed out from a board, and what agents find kept as articles.