Spacemacs vs PyCharm Community Edition

Spacemacs combines the Emacs platform (with the full power of the Emacs plugin ecosystem) and the Vi keybindings (via EViL), all in the same box.

At the heart of Spacemacs, the configuration layers group packages configuration into semantic units that can be toggled on and off. The architecture is simple but powerful, allowing the user to easily manage configuration dependencies between hundreds of packages.

Spacemacs is the biggest community-driven Emacs starter-kit.

Documentation is mandatory for each new configuration layer and can be accessed directly within the editor in Org format.

Emacs runs on Gnu/Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.

Stuff like version control, file management, good default theme are all configured out of the box.

Space-lead key bindings are organized in mnemonic namespaces. For instance, buffer actions are under SPC b, file actions are under SPC f, project actions are under SPC p, search actions are under SPC s, and so on. Keybindings are consistent across the whole distribution thanks to a set of conventions.

There's no need to reach for the mouse again since Spacemacs can be fully controlled with keyboard.

Evil package is a first class citizen and Spacemacs embraces it from day one. Evil package allows Vim users to be productive very quickly while still allowing regular Emacs users to use Spacemacs.

Files can be edited in Spacemacs remotely.

Allows for great organization applications that can be saved in future-proof format, plain text, can be integrated with org, LaTeX, markdown, HTML, Literate Programming and be committed to source control.

Spacemacs has some great features for taking notes, tracking to-do lists, and tracking time.

LaTeX allows for auto-completion, syncing, and more.

Has great daemon support, which can mitigate the issue of slow startup.

Sometimes you only have terminal access, over ssh or something.

Syntax highlighting and org-babel extensions.

The community surrounding Spacemacs is very active and there is a welcoming gitter chat for users to ask questions.

Spacemacs got its name from the fact that it is uses the space bar as a default leader key. The key was chosen because it is easy to press and to hopefully lower the risk of RSI.

New functionalities and fixes are added to Spacemacs every day, while release cycles are short.

Elixir layer which uses the Alchemist package is the best way to edit Elixir code out there.

PyCharm has CVS, Git, Subversion and Mercurial integration.

PyCharm includes sophisticated heuristics for determining what each variable type is and providing autocompletion suggestions for them.

There are many refactoring options including renaming and changing signature across entire projects. It also includes the an ability to preview changes before committing and exclude anything unwanted.

PyCharm can leverage run-time information when running your application with the built-in debugger to figure out what types can possibly be passed to which functions, etc.

PyCharm supports cefpython and electron.js (with c bindings).

JetBrains offers a Student Pack, which gives you a student license and access to the pro features of selected products such as PyCharm, IntelliJ IDEA and Php Storm.