Emacs vs Notepad++: What are the differences?

What is Emacs? The extensible self-documenting text editor. GNU Emacs is an extensible, customizable text editor—and more. At its core is an interpreter for Emacs Lisp, a dialect of the Lisp programming language with extensions to support text editing.

What is Notepad++? Free source code editor and Notepad replacement. Notepad++ is a free (as in "free speech" and also as in "free beer") source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages. Running in the MS Windows environment, its use is governed by GPL License.

Emacs and Notepad++ can be categorized as "Text Editor" tools.

Some of the features offered by Emacs are:

• Content-sensitive editing modes, including syntax coloring, for a variety of file types including plain text, source code, and HTML.
• Complete built-in documentation, including a tutorial for new users.
• Full Unicode support for nearly all human languages and their scripts.

On the other hand, Notepad++ provides the following key features:

• Syntax Highlighting and Syntax Folding
• User Defined Syntax Highlighting and Folding: screenshot 1, screenshot 2, screenshot 3 and screenshot 4
• PCRE (Perl Compatible Regular Expression) Search/Replace

"Vast array of extensions" is the primary reason why developers consider Emacs over the competitors, whereas "Syntax for all languages that i use" was stated as the key factor in picking Notepad++.

According to the StackShare community, Notepad++ has a broader approval, being mentioned in 182 company stacks & 483 developers stacks; compared to Emacs, which is listed in 96 company stacks and 68 developer stacks.