Helix
MPL-2.0 modal terminal editor — tree-sitter + LSP
Rust / Editors · OSS/MIT · 40.7k
What's Good
MPL-2.0 Rust binary. Kakoune/Vim-inspired multiple selections, built-in tree-sitter highlighting, LSP out of the box. No plugin tax to get a modern editing core. Keyboard-first, fast on SSH and local.
The Catch
Vs Zed: terminal modal + tree-sitter/LSP; not a GPU IDE. No Electron GUI, weaker AI-IDE surface than Cursor/Zed. Plugin story is thinner than Neovim.
Verdict
MPL-2.0 terminal editor. Free forever; not Zed/Cursor.
Embed
[](https://stackgems.com/gems/helix)