Why hackers moved from vi to Emacs
1 hacker described this switch in public comments. Their words, with links to the originals.
What hackers said about the move
“I fully switched from vi to emacs in 1992 and been using it heavily every day since then.”jjav, 2026-10-29original comment ↗
Use vi? Get alerted when hackers criticize it.
Tell us the tools in your stack. When hackers start criticizing one of them, or moving to an alternative, you will hear about it first.
vi vs Emacs
| vi | Emacs | |
|---|---|---|
| Hackers who recommend | 0 | 8 |
| Hackers who criticize | 0 | 1 |
| Moved away from it | 1 | 1 |
| Moved to it | 0 | 4 |
Counts are distinct hackers in the sampled comments, not market share.
Criticism of vi
No further criticism of vi captured yet.
Praise for Emacs
“I switched from vi readline mode to emacs recently primarily for Ctrl-r and Alt-. (insert the argument from the last command). I love how interactive they feel.”meken, 2026-09-16original comment ↗
“I recently switched from full IDE to Emacs”KallDrexx, 2026-08-27original comment ↗
“My "stack" is all open-source: from Linux to Emacs to what-have-you.”TacticalCoder, 2026-05-04original comment ↗
“I switched from IntelliJ to emacs for this reason and it’s been great”ATMLOTTOBEER, 2026-03-26original comment ↗
“Emacs, for example, has rx notation.”db48x, 2026-01-28original comment ↗