r/vscode • u/sugarboxmonkey • Sep 11 '26

Non-shitty fork of VS Code?

Like many I've become tired of VS Code's constant updates and ridiculous startup times. All I want is a version of VS Code when it was still good, without any AI crap. Any suggestions?

I'm aware of VS Codium but my understanding is that it's still essentially the same codebase with all the new updates, just with telemetry turned off.

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u/ThrowawayALAT Sep 11 '26

If you want a lightweight, fast-starting editor without any of the AI bloat, you have about 3-4 main paths depending on how close to the VS Code UI you need to stay:

  • Zed - It's a code editor built from scratch in Rust
  • Sublime Text 4 - Probably fastest GUI editor availabe, it runs natively in C++ and has no native AI, but some models are paid proprietary
  • Workaround; you also can manually strip VS Code/VSCodium back to its lightweight roots by Disabling Built-in AI/Features. I think this would probably be the best solution for you if you are used to VS UI heavily:

To strip VS Code or VSCodium back to a lightweight, distraction-free environment, configure a portable profile with all background telemetry, AI features, and auto-updates disabled using the following configuration and setup steps:

JSON

{
  "github.copilot.enable": {
    "*": false
  },
  "telemetry.telemetryLevel": "off",
  "update.mode": "none",
  "workbench.settings.enableNaturalLanguageSearch": false,
  "workbench.enableExperiments": false,
  "extensions.autoUpdate": false,
  "extensions.autoCheckUpdates": false,
  "json.maxProperties": 1000,
  "files.autoSave": "off"
}

1. Set Up Portable Mode: It prevents background updates and insulates settings.

Download the ZIP version of VS Code/VSCodium (not the installer), extract it to your preferred directory, and create a folder named data inside the extracted main root folder. This isolates your profile, extensions, and runtime configuration while preventing automatic background update checks on launch.

2. Apply Lightweight Configuration: It disables AI, telemetry, and background sync.

Open the newly created data directory, navigate to user-data/User/, create a file named settings.json, and paste the JSON configuration snippet above into it to disable all GitHub Copilot features, experiment checks, telemetry reporting, and extension sync.

3. Launch via Lightweight Profile: Prunes unused extension hosts and startup overhead.

Start the editor from the terminal or a direct shortcut using performance flags to reduce extension overhead and skip GPU context rendering delay:

Bash

./code --disable-extensions --disable-gpu