Introduction

Pyzed is a library for building desktop interfaces in Python with the performance of Iced, a GUI toolkit written in Rust. It includes a set of components inspired by the Zed editor: tabs, file tree, command palette, code editor, terminal, menus, notifications and a workspace with dockable panels.

A code editor built with Pyzed (One Light theme)

The interface style takes after the Zed editor, and Pyzed Design, the visual designer, takes after the form and scene editors of Godot, Unreal Engine, Visual Basic and Qt Designer.

How it works

Your Python code describes what is shown. Rust takes care of how it is drawn.

Python                         Rust (pyzed._core, PyO3)                 Iced 0.14
App.view() ──► Widget tree ──► render.rs: Widget → iced::Element ──► layout + wgpu/tiny-skia
App.update() ◄── messages ◄────── app.rs: Message, Command → Task ◄──── events (mouse, keyboard)

view() returns a tree of Widgets. They are immutable Rust objects, so building it is cheap.
When the user interacts, Pyzed calls your update(message) or directly the callable you passed (on_press=self.save). Then it calls view() again.
Layout, text, syntax highlighting and drawing happen in Rust.
The GIL is released while the event loop runs, so your Python threads keep working.

When to use Pyzed

Desktop tools, internal dashboards, editors and utilities that should feel fast.
Dense IDE-style interfaces with many panels, lists and keyboard shortcuts.
Apps you want to test or document with screenshots generated headlessly.

What you need to know

Basic Python: classes, functions and lambdas. No Rust or Iced knowledge required.

Continue with the installation or jump straight to the quickstart. Questions about licensing, platforms or how Pyzed compares with tkinter, Kivy, PyQt or Flet? See the FAQ.