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SpecsUpdate
Pros
Pro Vi keybindings through Evil mode
Evil mode emulates vim behaviors within Emacs. It enables Vi users to move inside the Emacs universe.
Pro Total customizability
Customizations can be made to a wide range of Emacs' functions through a Lisp dialect (Emacs Lisp). A robust list of existing Lisp extensions include the practical (git integration, syntax highlighting, etc) to the utilitarian (calculators, calendars) to the sublime (chess, Eliza).
Pro Great documentation
With 30+ years of use the Emacs documentation is very thorough. There are also a lot of tutorials and guides written by third parties.
Pro Works in terminal or as a GUI application
You can use Emacs' command line interface or graphical user interface.
Pro It's also an IDE
You can debug, compile, manage files, integrate with version control systems, etc. All through the various plugins that can be installed.
Pro use-package and org-mode
Missing some neural package that predicts actions
Maybe in the next release ...
Pro Excellent Lisp editing support
Built-in packages make editing Lisp source code feel natural.
Pro Visual selection and text objects with Evil
Evil is an extensible vi layer for Emacs. It provides Vim features like Visual selection and text objects.
Pro eshell is cross platform
You can use the underlying operating system shell as a terminal emulation in an Emacs buffer. Don't like the default shell for your configuration? You can change it to your liking.
Pro Customisation with Emacs Lisp
(Almost) everything is implemented in Emacs Lisp. You are the limit when it comes to changing or adding new functions to emacs.
Pro Excelent tutorial to get you started
The tutorial you are presented with at startup shows you exactly what you need to get started and teaches you how to use the built-in help yourself later.
Pro Gnus
Managing several large mailing lists has never been easier using Gnus. The threading commands and the various ways of scoring articles means that I never miss important messages/authors, etc. A joy to use.
Pro Integrates planning in your development process
You can jump straight from your org-mode files to programming tasks - and back - and build a seamless workflow.
Pro Support multi-line editing, multiple frame, powerful paren, crazy jumping style
Review the "Emacs Rocks" video.
Pro Enormous range of functionalities (way beyond simple "text editing")
Through its programmability, a very broad range of functionalities can be integrated in emacs, turning it even into a "single point of contact" with the underlying operating system.
Pro GTK+ widgets support
Since version 25 you can run GTK widgets inside Emacs buffers. One of these is the WebKitGTK+, which allows the user to run a full-featured web browser inside Emacs with JavaScript and CSS support among other things.
Pro Self documenting
Emacs has extensive help support built-in as well as a tutorial accessed with C-h t.
Pro Ubiquity
Fully compliant GNU-emacs is available on many platforms, and they all understand .emacs configuration files.
Pro Not so difficult to learn
It is not Word or notepad but yet, getting from zero to working isn't to hard
Pro Lisp customizations
With lisp customization, any behavior of Emacs can be changed. Update with pre-release patch can be also applied without recompiling the whole Emacs.
Cons
Con Default keybindings may cause Repetitive Strain Injury
Richard Stallman himself, the primary maintainer of GNU Emacs, suffered crippling RSI for years. Unlike editors that allow a relaxed, home-row oriented approach to using the keyboard with only occasional need to use a modifier key, Emacs requires frequently contorting hands to use several keys at once, giving rise to jokes about EMACS being a euphemism for "Esc-Meta-Alt-Ctrl-Shift".
Con Can take awhile to learn
While it's better than it used to be, with most functions being possible through the menu, Emacs is still quite a bit different from your standard editor. You'll need to learn new keyboard shortcuts.
Con Sometimes the extensibility can distract you from your actual work
If I ever want to lose half a day, I'll start by tweaking my .spacemacs config file.
Con Very poorly maintained
It's not clear to what extent Emacs is still supported. There's still some development taking place, but so slow that it's almost an abandoned project. There are numerous bugs in Emacs, many these days associated with start up and package management. When you search the Internet for solutions, you often find many posts, sometimes going back months or even years, with no clear fix.
Con User interface is terrible
I was using Emacs in the early 1980's, before there were GUIs. In fairness to Emacs, its original design was conceived in that context and is rather good at some things, like flexible ability to bind commands to keyboard shortcuts. Unfortunately, it didn't keep up with the times and fails to take advantage of the entire world of GUI design that's revolutionized computer science since then. So Emacs does 5% or what an editor should do quite will, and is surprisingly under-powered and old fashioned at the other 95%. To this day, it lacks or struggles with very basic things, like interactive dialogs, toolbars, tabbed interface, file system navigation, etc., etc. The things I just mentioned, are all present in some limited and inept form, but falls far short of current standard of good user interface design. For this reason, I would not recommend Emacs to anyone who is under 50 year old, or who needs power user capabilities. For casual, unsophisticated applications by someone who grew up with green screen character based computers, it's probably OK.
Con Chorded keyboard combinations can be baffling
For example, for navigation it uses the b, n, p, l keys. Which for some people may seem strange.
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