Geany vs GNU Emacs

Geany is very lightweight thanks to the smaller offering of features.

Geany has a built-in plugin manager which can be used to install plugins and add new powerful features to the editor.

In Geany you technically search once for a whole search query, unlike Gedit, where once you start typing, the file is searched for in accordance with each substring of what you're typing, all the while leading to terribly annoying lag.

Geany is a cross platform editor, very similar to Notepad++ in Windows.

Press F5 and code will run without the need to switch between windows.

This software respects your freedom.

Hence it is capable of showing the methods and inner classes of, e.g., a Java source file.

It is a real app and not another frankenstein web/electron app. This means it runs great and doesn't extraordinary amounts of RAM.

For example, there is an easy way to change the font and theme in the View menu. No need to search through several syntax styles like in Notepad++ just to be able to change the used font.

Customizations can be made to a wide range of Emacs' functions through a Lisp dialect. 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).

Licensed under GNU GPL.

Emacs can be controlled entirely with the keyboard.

You can use Emacs' command line interface or graphical user interface.

Emacs has extensive help support built-in as well as a tutorial accessed with C-h t.

Packs like spacemacs make it easy to get started and bring the learning curve down from an infinitely regressing spiral to something more manageable.

Emacs has modes for nearly every use case, even ones like mail and internet browsing. It has often been said that Emacs is essentially an operating system on its own.

Evil-mode makes Emacs actually usable as an editor.