GNU Emacs vs. Microsoft Visual Studio Code

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
GNU Emacs
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
GNU Emacs is described as a free extensible and customizable text editor for the Lisp programming language.N/A
Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft offers Visual Studio Code, a text editor that supports code editing, debugging, IntelliSense syntax highlighting, and other features.
$0
Pricing
GNU EmacsMicrosoft Visual Studio Code
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
GNU EmacsMicrosoft Visual Studio Code
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
GNU EmacsMicrosoft Visual Studio Code
Considered Both Products
GNU Emacs
Chose GNU Emacs
Of course, Vim is a good contender for comparison as well, so I'll include it. I find Emacs much easier to learn, which will help speed up productivity for newer users. It seems much faster than VIM and VSCode, especially under load. It's highly highly customizable, in ways …
Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
When you start using [Microsoft Visual Studio Code], it lands more on the "text editor" side of the spectrum, akin to Vim/Emacs/Sublime. Aligned with this, it's fast and easy to install and setup, and competes with the best of them as a great general purpose tool. But then it …
Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
As I explained above, definitely switch to VSCode unless you are heavily invested/comfortable with the alternatives, in which case it may not be worth it for now. Vim users may differ, but did I mention VSCode also has a highly integrated and mature Vim plugin? I used to be a Vi…
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
GNU EmacsMicrosoft Visual Studio Code
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Medium-sized Companies
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Score 9.7 out of 10
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Score 9.7 out of 10
Enterprises
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User Ratings
GNU EmacsMicrosoft Visual Studio Code
Likelihood to Recommend
8.2
(4 ratings)
8.8
(89 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.4
(2 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(5 ratings)
Support Rating
8.2
(2 ratings)
9.7
(24 ratings)
User Testimonials
GNU EmacsMicrosoft Visual Studio Code
Likelihood to Recommend
Open Source
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.
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Microsoft
Microsoft Visual Studio Code is highly recommended for the development of systems and / or complex applications entrusted to work teams under a specific methodology, and its use is also recommended for the maintenance of previously developed applications.
It is not recommended as a learning environment for developers with little experience as the learning curve would be too high
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Pros
Open Source
  • 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.
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Microsoft
  • Very accessible -- it's compatible with all platforms and environments, free to install, and fast to open
  • Strong native support for many languages, and very strong extensibility to provide advanced language features
  • Git integration is top-notch, often displaying a better history, diff, and merge interface that is otherwise available in version control systems
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Cons
Open Source
  • 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.
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Microsoft
  • Lack of button bar like ones found in Visual Studio.
  • Lack of integrated help that could link to YouTube, Channel 9, or other Microsoft videos on how to learn about features.
  • Integration with Team Foundation Server.
  • Would like to see it having some sort of integration into a Web API testing harness.
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Likelihood to Renew
Open Source
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Solid tool that provides everything you need to develop most types of applications. The only reason not a 10 is that if you are doing large distributed teams on Enterprise level, Professional does provide more tools to support that and would be worth the cost.
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Usability
Open Source
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
This is a tool for programmers and it works like many others. If you are in the development world already then you will be sailing in no time with Microsoft Visual Studio Code. It is also great for new developers and it is very easy to use and you can get all the tools you need in one place as you begin to learn.
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Support Rating
Open Source
Everything that you need to know about Emacs can be found on the internet. There are many Emacs "cheat sheets" that list out all of the shortcuts for Emacs. There are videos on how to use Emacs. Emacs is easily installed using the standard Linux package managers and can also be easily updated through them as well. There are tutorials on how to customize Emacs to your liking.
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Microsoft
Active development means filing a bug on the GitHub repo typically gets you a response within 4 days. There are plugins for almost everything you need, whether it be linting, Vim emulation, even language servers (which I use to code in Scala). There is well-maintained official documentation. The only thing missing is forums. The closest thing is GitHub issues, which typically has the answers but is hard to sift through -- there are currently 78k issues.
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Alternatives Considered
Open Source
Of course, Vim is a good contender for comparison as well, so I'll include it. I find Emacs much easier to learn, which will help speed up productivity for newer users. It seems much faster than VIM and VSCode, especially under load. It's highly highly customizable, in ways other editors don't stack up against. Its lack of bloat also is a nice addition to a great product.
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Microsoft
[Microsoft] Visual Studio Code beats the competition due to its extensibility. Their robust extensions architecture combined with the plethora of mostly free extensions written by the community can't be beaten. The fact that this tool itself is provided by a world-recognized company, Microsoft, free of charge is phenomenal. The goodwill garnered by them is immeasurable. Other tools I've used were missing features or were just too rigid, too complicated, or too unsophisticated for my liking. The fact that VS Code is easy to mold to my will with the right extensions seals the deal.
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Return on Investment
Open Source
  • Emacs is free software, there is no cost at all.
  • It has helped tremendously in situations where many, or large, log files need to be searched.
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Microsoft
  • Positive impact on minimizing time wasted by employees with software installation and setup
  • Positive impact on reducing spend on software licensing
  • Positive impact on minimizing time used to manage different applications for different purposes - this performs all of the functions we need in basic coding
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