--- 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) HG Harshit G. Freelancer Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 7/2/2022 "A genuinely good open source text editor for Unix" 4/5 What do you like best about GNU Emacs? Open source, built in. It works like charm for Linux-based operating systems. It is very simple to use. It is possible to do real-time edits, a classic editor and it is very customizable as well. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about GNU Emacs? While GNU emacs is legacy software, it isn't meant for everyone, especially the new GUI-loving generation. Needless to say, it has a comparatively steeper learning curve if you are accustomed to GUI editors. Also, compared to those fancy GUI editors, its functionalities are somewhat limited. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Recommendations to others considering GNU Emacs: If you have not worked on it before, you may want to try other open-source GUI editors instead. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is GNU Emacs solving and how is that benefiting you? GNU Emacs helps me and my organization to seamlessly edit and maintain important configuration files in our Linux server. Not only that but GNU Emacs is also a primary text editor on our Linux server thus all text editing tasks are made possible through it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Verified User in Computer Software](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User in Computer Software") UC Verified User in Computer Software Enterprise (\> 1000 emp.) 5/24/2022 "Emacs: The holy grail for code editing?" 4/5 What do you like best about GNU Emacs? Emacs and VIM are the text-only editors that are commonly used across Linux environments. Sometimes when you ssh into a machine there is no GUI editors available and you often reach for an editor like this. This is what I like best about emacs. It's usually installed on every machine and makes it easy to edit a variety of file formats on a remote machine. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about GNU Emacs? Some people use Emacs as a daily driver, but I do not. There are too many nice GUI features that editors like sublime, vscode have that emacs does not have out of the box. If you are on a GUI desktop I prefer not to use emacs since it is text only. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Recommendations to others considering GNU Emacs: If you are editing files a lot on remote machines you should try Emacs. It has a learning curve, but you will become very efficient the more you learn. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is GNU Emacs solving and how is that benefiting you? The problem I solve using GNU emacs is editing files on remote Linux machines. It makes it easy to log into deployed infrastructure and edit files since it is usually installed on most Linux distros. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Current UserValidated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Ankit K.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Ankit K.") AK Ankit K. Senior Software Engineer Enterprise (\> 1000 emp.) 3/8/2022 "An Amazing Text Editor With Sub Shell" 4/5 What do you like best about GNU Emacs? GNU Emacs is a powerful editor which provides the facility of an in-built sub-shell. It supports UNICODE fully. Everything can be done which can be done using any modern IDE. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about GNU Emacs? It lacks good documentation. The repositories are scattered. It requires a lot of considerable time to learn working on GNU Emacs and that too, shortcuts are not easy to remember. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is GNU Emacs solving and how is that benefiting you? We are using Emacs to fix the small code changes and run the code in the background. In addition, we are using Emacs to make a to-do list and to make quick notes for future reference. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Jerry C.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Jerry C.") JC Jerry C. Head of Bioinformatics and Software Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 8/18/2021 "My go-to code editor when I SSH into a remote server" 4/5 What do you like best about GNU Emacs? Emacs is easy to install on a Linux machine and works great as an editor when you are logged into a remote server in a command-line Terminal. Other editors such as Atom, Sublime, Eclipse and VSCode need to use an SSH tunnel for work on a remote server, which is very inconvenient and prone to connection issues. I mostly code in Python, and Emacs has nice color coding and styling for Python code. And shortcuts are great in Emacs Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about GNU Emacs? The only drawback I see is some lack of support for newer languages and libraries. For example, I was trying to find a color-coding package for programming in VueJS, but could not find an appropriate one for Emacs. The community for Emacs is an older bunch, and doesn't always have support and updates for the newest frameworks. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is GNU Emacs solving and how is that benefiting you? Emacs solves the problem of coding when you are logged into a remote server. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More 8/27/2021 Current UserValidated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite YC Yoandri C. System Software Code Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 9/15/2021 "Free text editor" 4/5 What do you like best about GNU Emacs? Content recognition, full Unicode support, graphical interface, support for XDG conversions and native support for JSON parsing. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about GNU Emacs? Scattered repositories and configure system to integrate applications and difficult external code. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Recommendations to others considering GNU Emacs: Write code, run available software and repository. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is GNU Emacs solving and how is that benefiting you? Compatible with different PC operating systems, I make code and run in the background what I need to test to improve activity. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Jan P.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Jan P.") JP Jan P. Staff Engineer (DevOps) Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 5/9/2019 "If you're old, you probably love it!" 3.5/5 What do you like best about GNU Emacs? Emacs has been around forever. It is extremely extensible. Anything you can do, you can probably do in Emacs. The old joke was that Emacs had everything but the kitchen sink, so emacstool's icon was a kitchen sink. I like that it is consistent and I've been using it so long my fingers know their way around it. I can do pretty much anything anyone can do with their fancy IDEs. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about GNU Emacs? It's a little on the clunky side. You can tell it was written back in the days of the glass TTY. Sometimes it is painful to get support for your latest snazzy tool/language. You know you can, but you might have to do some hunting around and customization to get it to work/look the way you want it. It's not... polished. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Recommendations to others considering GNU Emacs: If you're old, you probably already know how to use it. If you're not, use something else. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is GNU Emacs solving and how is that benefiting you? I have been using Emacs so long, I have a hard time with any other editor. It does what I need it to and otherwise stays out of my way. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Current UserValidated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite GF Gaspar F. Founder Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 9/7/2019 "Text editor for all your needs" 4/5 What do you like best about GNU Emacs? It's extremelly configurable, and extensible Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about GNU Emacs? The learning curve grows very slow in the beginning. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Recommendations to others considering GNU Emacs: You need free time to start, patience and forget what hoy already know about texto editora. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is GNU Emacs solving and how is that benefiting you? My daily work relies on coding almos all day, and Emacs makes It easier, i find the tools i need and often people launch new extensions Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite CL chen l. Enterprise (\> 1000 emp.) 2/27/2018 "Use Emacs for edit or search the files" 3.5/5 What do you like best about GNU Emacs? All are command based, which means you click the keys and the result immediately show/update to you. You do not need scroll the screen. Multiple windows support, even can open for same file in different locations. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about GNU Emacs? Quite old. Not see major or new features update. For me, different search pattern support, multiple windows opened for different searchings is important for me. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is GNU Emacs solving and how is that benefiting you? If like to scan through all the search results very quickly, I definitely use Emacs, as I do not need scroll up/down the windows. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Current UserValidated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Verified User in Telecommunications](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User in Telecommunications") UT Verified User in Telecommunications Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 10/31/2018 "Gnu emacs" 3.5/5 What do you like best about GNU Emacs? It is the most expansive software. Language support and navigation support superb Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about GNU Emacs? Key combinations not easy for fingers. Memory usage higher than other editors. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is GNU Emacs solving and how is that benefiting you? Web browser, emails, editing files on remote computer using local emacs instance Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Miguel Angel A.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Miguel Angel A.") MA Miguel Angel A. Instructor Professor Enterprise (\> 1000 emp.) 3/22/2016 "The best editor out there." 4/5 What do you like best about GNU Emacs? The best thing about emacs are how easy it is to extend it and how it has features for everything imaginable while still being a decently sized software package. It's also unobstrusive and is solid as a rock. Another good thing about Emacs is that it works exactly the same accross all it's supported platforms, down to the configuration files themselves. As a bonus, Emacs is also extensively documented and there are lots of useful information on the Web about it and it's configuration language Emacs Lisp. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about GNU Emacs? It's very steep learning curve. Though it's so well documented that's not really a problem. Enabling Cua-Mode (changes key bindings so that copy/paste/cut and the like use the traditional ctrl+c/v/x instead of Emacs quite unusual key binsings) is quite obscure. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Recommendations to others considering GNU Emacs: Emacs is probably the best text editor out there but it has a steep learining curve. My recommendation would be to take a couple of days to practice getting used to the key bindings and enabling Cua-mode. Another thing is that anyone using emacs should take the time to learn all abou org-mode. That's simply the best emacs feature in my opinion. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is GNU Emacs solving and how is that benefiting you? I use emacs to write reports and white papers using the wonderfull and all encompasing Org-Mode. I also use it to write and debug python scripts, medium sized C/C++ programs and draw diagrams with Ditaa. Most of my academic and programming work is made with Emacs. The only thing I don't do with Emacs is Java programming, but that's mostly a problem with the language than the editor. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More 3/25/2016 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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