TrustRadius Insights for GNU Emacs are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.
Pros
Simple and easy-to-use interface: Many users have praised Emacs for its simplicity and ease of use, especially in Linux-based operating systems. It has a user-friendly interface that allows for intuitive navigation and convenient keyboard shortcuts, enhancing productivity.
Versatile with extensive functionalities: Emacs offers a wide range of functionalities and shortcuts through its extensive library and rich macros. This versatility allows users to efficiently perform various tasks such as programming, shell access, and organization using extensions like Org Mode.
Highly customizable: The extensibility and flexibility of Emacs are highly regarded by users. They appreciate the ability to customize the editor to suit their needs, work in different languages, and adhere to specific coding standards. This customization power enables users to tailor Emacs according to their preferences, making it their own unique text editing experience.
Emacs is utilized as one of the primary text editors available for global use across our remote build servers. This allows engineers to modify files on a system with a familiar interface that they can access on their own local computer. Emacs is adept at language recognition and highlights syntax in a meaningful way. It also allows users to set their own custom configurations for their user profile and is expandable via installation packages.
Pros
Fast
Syntax highlighting
Cons
Shortcuts are not standard.
Sometimes certain key combinations puts it into an unfamiliar state.
Likelihood to Recommend
Emacs is best utilized on a Unix system where it can be easily installed and accessed. It allows for quick editing of files on a system whether you are accessing it locally through the console or remotely via an ssh connection. Once users familiarize themselves with the Emacs shortcuts, it becomes a pretty efficient text manipulation program. On a standard Windows computer, it is less likely to use Emacs for code editing, especially if you have a local repository on your host machine.
I use GNU Emacs as my primary text editor, as well as an organization tool for project tracking and to-dos as well as scheduling and planning. It is also used for taking notes and recording bits of information for easy retrieval later. I also use it for searching and parsing multiple large log files for troubleshooting.
Pros
GNU Emacs is a text editor that can do almost anything that you want to do with it. It is fairly easy to extend the functionality using Emacs Lisp with a large library available.
It can be easily customized using themes as well as custom code to change the look and feel as well as how everything works.
Cons
There is a bit of a learning curve for Emacs. In order to use it most efficiently, it takes a little time to learn the Emacs way, as well as learning the keyboard commands for everything. Many things can be done from the menu, but the keyboard is really most efficient.
Customizing and extending Emacs is done with Emacs Lisp. While very flexible, Lisp is a bit different programming language than many people are used to.
Likelihood to Recommend
If you are willing to put in a little time to learn how GNU Emacs works, it can be an extremely powerful and versatile editing tool, as well as being used for almost any kind of text searching, replacing, or processing. Using Org-mode alone is worth learning Emacs. Once you learn the basics, they can be applied and used in all areas that you would use Emacs for. If you want a text editor and information tool that you can use for almost everything, then the learning curve is worth it. If you want simple text editor for editing small files, then Emacs may be overkill.
VU
Verified User
Manager in Information Technology (11-50 employees)
As far as I know, I'm the only user of Gnu Emacs at Lendio. I use it daily in my work as a DevOps engineering team lead and individual contributor. Emacs is an editor, but also more than just an editor. It is a way of life. You can do pretty much anything in Emacs. I use it for editing files, both in my local filesystem and on remote systems using the Tramp subsystem. Emacs is well integrated with tools such as ssh and sudo, and allows me to edit files on remote systems in a privileged manner. I also routinely use Emacs's integrations with our source code management system (we use Git). The Ediff function is extremely useful when comparing between versions of a given file. As for the business problems that it helps with, Emacs provides IDE functionality in an extensible fashion at zero cost. It is a great tool!
Pros
Emacs is exceptionally good at editing files. The various modes available allow customization of things like indentation, color schemes, etc. when editing different types of files.
Tramp mode in Emacs allows transparent editing of files on remote systems, including using sudo for access to secured files. As far as I know, no other tool does this as well.
Emacs's integration with Git is very useful when it comes to determining what changed and when. Git plugs into Emacs's generic SCM functionality, which means you get a ton of features for free, including Ediff for change management (so you can see what changed between two revisions of a file).
Integration with my web browser through the Edit with Emacs Chrome extension allows me to use a full editor when composing a post on a web page. This allows me to run various tools (such as spell checker, etc.) when composing on a web page in a text area.
Cons
Emacs is old, so it's a little crufty and not too easy to pick up and start using. There is a community package called Spacemacs that simplifies a lot of things that you do with Emacs. It is probably better suited to beginners.
Sometimes, the choices that were made to integrate certain functionality change the basic models for that functionality. This is seen primarily in the version control system support, where multiple version control systems are supported and "unified" to a standard Emacs-y way of doing things. This can be confusing to the new user not familiar with the Emacs way.
Emacs has, as its foundation, a lisp interpreter. This means that the extension language for Emacs is emacs-lisp. Some people find lisp hard to understand and have difficulties writing Emacs extension code, or understanding existing code.
Likelihood to Recommend
Emacs is well suited to pretty much any application... if you already know Emacs. If you have never used Emacs before, you might be more comfortable with a generic IDE system. If you are working at the system level (not just coding an application), then Emacs is an excellent tool. If you are managing multiple systems and need to edit files all over the place all the time, Emacs is great. If you know Emacs Lisp and enjoy extending your editor, Emacs is for you.
Emacs isn't used universally at my place of work, though it's one of the better options for editors readily available to us. Certain teams use it depending on their needs, and some use others for theirs. There are no restrictions or requirements as to what editor we use. The business problem it solves is just having a good editor that can be counted on for large and small scale use.
Pros
Readily available: Emacs is available on almost all operating systems. You can use it for free, and even use it for remote editing. It has a nice desktop application that anyone can use, even the ordinary user.
Lightweight application: Although it hasn't always been, Emacs is now a very lightweight, efficient editor that isn't going to demand much CPU power. This can be crucial for large-scale applications.
Easy learning curve: for complex editors, Emacs is one of the easier to get a handle on. There's good documentation, and an easy layout that makes figuring out how it works much easier than others.
Cons
Initial startup time: not that it matters greatly, but Emacs can take a while on initial startup. But since it only happens once, it's not a huge deal.
Discovery of features: there are a lot of features to Emacs! But finding what all Emacs can do can take you some time. You'll still find new features on occasion even as a seasoned user.
Likelihood to Recommend
GNU Emacs is great for being a customizable editor. There are countless features for whatever you need. It's highly programmable, highly supported, easy to learn, and very lightweight. However, if you're looking solely for an IDE, you may be better off with a true IDE, although Emacs can probably do what you need.
VU
Verified User
Engineer in Information Technology (10,001+ employees)
