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Emacs

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1.2K
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322
Spacemacs

189
200
+ 1
86
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Emacs vs Spacemacs: What are the differences?

Key differences between Emacs and Spacemacs

Emacs and Spacemacs are both popular text editors used by developers, but they have some key differences that set them apart. Here are six specific differences:

1. Configuration: Emacs requires manual configuration using a Lisp dialect, while Spacemacs provides a pre-configured set of features and packages that are easily customizable using layers.

2. User Interface: Emacs has a basic user interface with a steep learning curve, whereas Spacemacs offers a more modern and streamlined user interface out of the box, making it more beginner-friendly.

3. Keybindings: Emacs has its own set of complex keybindings that can be challenging to memorize, while Spacemacs simplifies this by providing Evil Mode, which enables the use of Vim keybindings, making it easier for Vim users to transition.

4. Package Management: Emacs has its own package manager, but Spacemacs enhances this by using the package manager system called "package.el." Spacemacs also provides an additional layer of abstraction for managing and installing packages.

5. Community Support: Emacs has a well-established and active community that has been around for many years, offering extensive documentation and support. Spacemacs, being a relatively newer project, has a smaller but growing community that provides support specific to Spacemacs.

6. Ease of Setup: Emacs requires a manual setup process, which can be overwhelming for beginners, while Spacemacs provides an out-of-the-box experience, making it easier to get started without spending a lot of time on initial configuration.

In summary, the key differences between Emacs and Spacemacs lie in the configuration process, user interface, keybindings, package management, community support, and ease of setup.

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Pros of Emacs
Pros of Spacemacs
  • 65
    Vast array of extensions
  • 44
    Have all you can imagine
  • 40
    Everything i need in one place
  • 39
    Portability
  • 32
    Customer config
  • 16
    Your config works on any platform
  • 13
    Low memory consumption
  • 11
    Perfect for monsters
  • 10
    All life inside one program
  • 8
    Extendable, portable, fast - all at your fingertips
  • 6
    Enables extremely rapid keyboard-only navigation
  • 5
    Widely-used keybindings (e.g. by bash)
  • 5
    Extensible in Lisp
  • 5
    Runs everywhere important
  • 4
    FOSS Software
  • 4
    Powerful multilanguage IDE
  • 4
    Git integration
  • 4
    May be old but always reliable
  • 3
    Asynchronous
  • 3
    Powerful UI
  • 1
    Huge ecosystem
  • 14
    Advanced support for Vim key bindings
  • 12
    Discoverability
  • 10
    Easy setup
  • 10
    Never have to touch the mouse
  • 7
    Community-driven configuration
  • 7
    Cross-platform
  • 6
    Documentation
  • 5
    Emacs
  • 4
    Fast-paced development
  • 4
    Evil
  • 4
    Nice UI
  • 2
    Git Integration
  • 1
    Autocompletion

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Cons of Emacs
Cons of Spacemacs
  • 4
    So good and extensible, that one can get sidetracked
  • 4
    Hard to learn for beginners
  • 1
    Not default preinstalled in GNU/linux
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    - No public GitHub repository available -

    What is Emacs?

    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 Spacemacs?

    Since version 0.101.0 and later Spacemacs totally abolishes the frontiers between Vim and Emacs. The user can now choose his/her preferred editing style and enjoy all the Spacemacs features. Even better, it is possible to dynamically switch between the two styles seamlessly which makes it possible for programmers with different styles to do seat pair programming using the same editor.

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    What tools integrate with Emacs?
    What tools integrate with Spacemacs?

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    What are some alternatives to Emacs and Spacemacs?
    Atom
    At GitHub, we're building the text editor we've always wanted. A tool you can customize to do anything, but also use productively on the first day without ever touching a config file. Atom is modern, approachable, and hackable to the core. We can't wait to see what you build with it.
    Eclipse
    Standard Eclipse package suited for Java and plug-in development plus adding new plugins; already includes Git, Marketplace Client, source code and developer documentation. Click here to file a bug against Eclipse Platform.
    Vim
    Vim is an advanced text editor that seeks to provide the power of the de-facto Unix editor 'Vi', with a more complete feature set. Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing. It is an improved version of the vi editor distributed with most UNIX systems. Vim is distributed free as charityware.
    Neovim
    Neovim is a project that seeks to aggressively refactor Vim in order to: simplify maintenance and encourage contributions, split the work between multiple developers, enable the implementation of new/modern user interfaces without any modifications to the core source, and improve extensibility with a new plugin architecture.
    Visual Studio Code
    Build and debug modern web and cloud applications. Code is free and available on your favorite platform - Linux, Mac OSX, and Windows.
    See all alternatives