Freebuff vs Zed: free AI included vs a free editor where you bring the AI
Zed is a fast, free editor, but its free plan includes no hosted AI at all: no hosted models, and since October no edit predictions. Freebuff includes the models, every day.
In short
- Our verdict: Freebuff. We make Freebuff, so weigh that, but every claim below links to a source you can check.
- Zed’s free plan includes no hosted AI. Its docs say "Zed’s hosted models and Edit Predictions require a Pro subscription." On Free you bring your own API keys or agents, and pay for them yourself.
- The free plan keeps shrinking. Hosted prompts left it in 2025, and edit predictions left it on October 7, 2026.
- Pro is $10 a month with $5 of tokens. After that you pay API list price plus 10%, and the free trial is $5 of one model.
- Freebuff includes the models for free. Unlimited messages in every hour-long session, a published daily allowance with no monthly cap, and no API key to set up.
Zed is one of the fastest editors around, and the editor itself is free. Its AI is a different matter: the free plan includes no hosted models, so every agent message runs on a key or subscription you pay for. If you want an AI coding agent you can use all day without paying anyone per token, Freebuff is the better choice.
At a glance
| Feature | Freebuff | Zed |
|---|---|---|
| Free AI included | A full day of work, every day | None: bring your own keys or agents |
| Free edit predictions | Not an editor | Removed from Free on Oct 7, 2026 |
| Free trial of hosted AI | No trial needed | $5 of GPT-6 Luna, 14 days |
| How usage is counted | Hour-long sessions with unlimited messages | Tokens at list price +10% after $5 |
| Paid plans | Not needed for a full day | Pro $10/mo, Business $30 a seat |
What Zed costs
Per Zed’s pricing page, Personal is $0 with "Unlimited use with your API keys or external agents". Its plan docs are plainer: "Zed’s hosted models and Edit Predictions require a Pro subscription." Pro is $10 a month with "$5 of tokens included", after which tokens are billed at "API list price +10%".
The free trial is 14 days with $5 of GPT-6 Luna, and "GPT-6 Luna is the only hosted model available during the free trial." Zed’s free plan has shrunk twice: in September 2025 it dropped its 50 hosted prompts a month, with Zed explaining that "LLM bills have become our biggest expense", and on October 7, 2026 edit predictions left it too. Its terms say fees are "non-refundable, except as required by law".
What Freebuff gives you for free
- The models are included. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, Solar Mini 4 and Solar Pro 4 and more, with no API key and no token bill.
- Unlimited messages in every session. A session lasts an hour, and the agent can read, edit, test and retry as many times as it needs inside it.
- A published daily allowance with no monthly cap. Up to 30 hours a day in the US, and 21 in countries such as Canada, the UK and Germany. That is 10 hours a day of DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, refilled every day. Right now, Solar Mini 4 and Solar Pro 4 never touch it.
- Keep your editor. The CLI runs in Zed’s terminal or any other. There is also a desktop app for Mac, Windows and Linux, the web workspace, and apps for iOS and Android.
What Zed users are saying
Zed has no Trustpilot page, so these come from GitHub and Hacker News:
- "Bait-and-switch". When hosted prompts left the free plan, one Hacker News commenter called it "Entirely predictable and what should’ve been done from the start instead of this bait-and-switch mere months after introducing agentic editing."
- Blocked on your own key. In September 2026, a user paying OpenRouter directly was told "Free Usage Exceeded", and reported that "I even occasionally (about 50% of the time) get charged even when the prompt doesn’t come through." #63861 Another saw "You reached your free usage limit. Upgrade to Zed Pro for more prompts." while using their own provider. #63401
- A trial that was gone at once. In August 2026, a user reported trial credits "instantly marked as fully consumed (20/20) despite zero usage". #63270
- Silent failures. After a failed payment, "edit predictions just fail silently", with no message to say why. #63252
What Freebuff users are saying
For me probably one of the best inventions of the LLM era. I can’t describe how much benefits I got accessing these models for free and it helped my workflows to speed up without even spending a cent.
as a broke student this will help me a lot I LOVE YOU GUYS
Where Zed is strong
Zed is a fast, open-source editor for Mac, Windows and Linux. Its free plan really is unlimited with your own keys, it supports a long list of providers and external agents such as Claude Agent and Codex, it publishes its token prices, and you can set a spending cap or switch AI off entirely. If you want a great editor and already pay for a model, Zed is an excellent home for it.
Our verdict
Pick Freebuff for the AI. Zed is a free editor, but its free plan includes no hosted AI, so every agent message runs on a key or subscription you pay for. Freebuff includes the models, with unlimited messages in every session and a published allowance that refills every day, and you can run it right inside Zed’s terminal.
Try Freebuff for free
No card, no API key. `npm install -g freebuff`