When comparing Geany vs qemacs (for quick emacs), the Slant community recommends Geany for most people. In the question“What are the best programming text editors?” Geany is ranked 3rd while qemacs (for quick emacs) is ranked 42nd. The most important reason people chose Geany is:
Geany is very lightweight thanks to the smaller offering of features.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros

Pro Light and fast
Geany is very lightweight thanks to the smaller offering of features.

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

Pro Quick search on large files
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.
Pro Cross platform
Geany is a cross platform editor, very similar to Notepad++ in Windows.
Pro Build in terminal
Press F5 and code will run without the need to switch between windows.
Pro Actively developed Free (as in freedom) Software
This software respects your freedom.
Pro Real syntax parsing (not just coloring)
Hence it is capable of showing the methods and inner classes of, e.g., a Java source file.

Pro Simple project management
Pro Native
It is a real app and not another frankenstein web/electron app. This means it runs great and doesn't extraordinary amounts of RAM.
Pro Options in the menu are easy to find
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.
Pro Input methods for most (human) languages
Including e.g. Chinese.
Pro Terminal and graphics mode
Supports the terminal mode with 'qemacs -nw' and a graphics mode.
Pro Good documentation and help
- Context sensitive shortcut help on F1.
- Good online documentation.
Pro Comfortable file browser
Easy to open and manage files (dired-mode).
Pro Supports many editing modes besides text
- Hex
- HTML / CSS
- Image
- Audio/video (maybe not the most sought after mode in a text editor, but, well, it's there)
Pro Full UTF-8 support
Including bi-directional writing.
Pro Super lightweight and fast
Pro Emacs like key-bindings
Use your muscle memory if you know Emacs already.
Cons
Con Not very advanced
Although it has some IDE features, it is not as advanced as some other text editors that can be extended to contain IDE functionality.
Con Windows installer not digitally signed
Con Not many third-party plugins
Geany is not as popular as some other text editors with plugin support. As such it's understandable that it's missing lots of powerful plugins available in other editors.
