--- title: GNU Emacs Reviews meta\_title: 'GNU Emacs Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta\_description: Filter 84 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how GNU Emacs works for a business like yours. aggregate\_rating: rating\_value: 4.5 review\_count: 84 scale: '5' date\_modified: '2026-08-09' parent\_category: name: Editor url: https://www.g2.com/categories/editor --- # GNU Emacs Reviews & Product Details GNU Emacs is a customizable text editor that is an interpreter and dialect with extension to support text editing with content-sensitive editing modes, built-in documentation, Unicode support, and more. * * * Seller [FreeCAD](https://www.g2.com/sellers/freecad) Discussions [GNU Emacs Community](https://www.g2.com/products/gnu-emacs/discuss) Solution Type Best-of-Breed Show More ## Value at a Glance Averages based on real user reviews. ### Perceived Cost $$$$$ [ View More Pricing Information ](https://www.g2.com/products/gnu-emacs/pricing) ## Top-Rated Alternatives [ ![Visual Studio Code](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Visual Studio Code") Visual Studio Code 4.7/5(2,732) ](https://www.g2.com/products/visual-studio-code/reviews) [ ![Notepad++](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Notepad++") Notepad++ 4.6/5(2,475) ](https://www.g2.com/products/notepad/reviews) [ ![Sublime Text](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Sublime Text") Sublime Text 4.5/5(1,783) ](https://www.g2.com/products/sublime-text/reviews) [ View All Alternatives ](https://www.g2.com/products/gnu-emacs/competitors/alternatives) ## User Insights Average based on 84 real user reviews. Perceived Cost $$$$$ [Log in to unlock pricing and user insights](/login) ML Matthias L. Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 12/22/2015 "An Editor that can be customized to all my needs." 2.5/5 What do you like best about GNU Emacs? Emacs is not so much an editor but more an editor-SDK - I can customize and extend and program it in any way I want to have the one editing experience completely tailored to my needs. It has a huge amount of extensions and supports many languages. This allows me to take advantage of the familiar emacs-environment for many tasks. Emacs can be controlled with the keyboard only, so I do not have to switch between keyboard and mouse which lends to less friction and more flow during development and writing. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about GNU Emacs? The out-of-the-box experience of Emacs is less than ideal - it requires a remarkable amount of customization to make the user-experience match my expectations. The huge amount of functionality and extendability makes me sometimes feel somewhat lost. This situation is compensated by so called "Emacs Starter Kits" of which I highly recommend Spacemacs. This adds extensions of high quality and configures them to make them play nice with each other. It also adds VIM-like key bindings, which compensates for another shortcoming of Emacs: the extensive use of key-combinations with CTRL, ALT and SHIFT could make your fingers hurt over time. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Recommendations to others considering GNU Emacs: Use a starter-kit. I can recommend Spacemacs. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is GNU Emacs solving and how is that benefiting you? I use Emacs for my everyday programming, as well as for note-taking and documentation. As I can use the same set of key-combinations etc. to work with all kinds of text, I do not have to spent my energy to adjust to different editors, word-processors or programming environments. Emacs plays nicely together with the command line, it allows remote editing, it is unobtrusive and fast. Because of that, it is a good candidate for agile development. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Current UserValidated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Isaac Z.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Isaac Z.") IZ Isaac Z. Product Specialist Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 12/22/2015 "A vim user that using emacs. Ok, I am using spacemacs." 2.5/5 What do you like best about GNU Emacs? Spacemacs extension Helm for search anything. Org-mode Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about GNU Emacs? single-threaded helm do not support helm embed. company mode do not support fuzzy match. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Recommendations to others considering GNU Emacs: multiple-thread supporting Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is GNU Emacs solving and how is that benefiting you? I use emacs write software. And so, any business problem I solved with emacs. Emacs need multiple thread support Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Current UserValidated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ## Questions about GNU Emacs? Ask real users or explore answers from the community Get practical answers, real workflows, and honest pros and cons from the G2 community or share your insights. [ Ask about GNU Emacs ](https://www.g2.com/products/gnu-emacs/discussions/new) GU Guest User What is GNU Emacs used for? 0 Upvotes 0 [ Join the conversation ](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-gnu-emacs-used-for) [ View all Discussions ](https://www.g2.com/products/gnu-emacs/discuss) ##### Pricing Pricing details for this product isn’t currently available. Visit the vendor’s website to learn more. [ View More Pricing Information ](https://www.g2.com/products/gnu-emacs/pricing) GNU Emacs Comparisons ![Product Avatar Image](https://images.g2crowd.com/uploads/product/image/small_square/small_square_13aba37ae908d9cf29a2452925257ccc/visual-studio-code.jpeg "Product Avatar Image") Visual Studio Code 4.7/5(2,732) [ Compare Now ](https://www.g2.com/compare/gnu-emacs-vs-visual-studio-code) ![Product Avatar Image](https://images.g2crowd.com/uploads/product/image/small_square/small_square_d6666b6b8c18d1f36792437ccb1ac3e6/sublime-text.png "Product Avatar Image") Sublime Text 4.5/5(1,783) [ Compare Now ](https://www.g2.com/compare/gnu-emacs-vs-sublime-text) ![Product Avatar Image](https://images.g2crowd.com/uploads/product/image/small_square/small_square_6093da7187bfc5bbbeeb9c885fe39648/notepad.png "Product Avatar Image") Notepad++ 4.6/5(2,475) [ Compare Now ](https://www.g2.com/compare/gnu-emacs-vs-notepad) ## Work at FreeCAD? 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