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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    GNU Emacs

    Score8 out of 10
    N/AGNU Emacs is described as a free extensible and customizable text editor for the Lisp programming language.N/A

    TextPad

    Score7 out of 10
    N/ATextPad is a free and open source general purpose plain text file editor, for Windows.N/A
    Pricing
    GNU EmacsTextPad
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
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    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    GNU EmacsTextPad
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    GNU EmacsTextPad
    Considered Both Products
    Open Source
    No answer on this topic
    Open Source
    Chose TextPad
    Textpad and Notepad++ are by far my preferred programs to use for the development process.
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
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    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
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    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
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    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Best Alternatives
    GNU EmacsTextPad
    Small Businesses
    BBEdit
    Score10 out of 10
    BBEdit
    Score10 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Vim
    Score9.8 out of 10
    Vim
    Score9.8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Vim
    Score9.8 out of 10
    Vim
    Score9.8 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    GNU EmacsTextPad
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.2
    (4 ratings)
    8.4
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.2
    (2 ratings)
    8.8
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    GNU EmacsTextPad
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Open Source
    I like the macro feature for transforming text. For example, taking a CSV file of data and quickly turning it into a set of SQL "insert" statements. Also, useful for this is the find/replace feature using regular expressions such as taking a URL QueryString and breaking all the parameters into separate lines and perhaps sorting them for review.
    Incentivized
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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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    Open Source
    • Quick to load.
    • Very fast searching algorithm for finding and replacing text.
    • Macros are very useful.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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    Open Source
    • I would like a "delete non-bookmarked lines" so I can skip the "invert bookmarks" step.
    • The "Compare Text Files" could be streamlined to compare text in 2 tabs without going through the save steps.
    Incentivized
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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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    Open Source
    I never had to use support, so I can't answer this. I would hope that it is good though.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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    Open Source
    When you want to quickly edit a file, TextPad starts up quickly and has many features over Microsoft Notepad. Visual Studio Code is an alternative in that it is full-featured and will edit text files but is slower at startup. I prefer the macro feature in TextPad due to its simplicity.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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    Open Source
    • Made my job easier, so I would say it had a positive return on investment. Especially for it's overall low cost.
    Incentivized
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