When comparing ZSNES vs Spelunky, the Slant community recommends Spelunky for most people. In the question“What are the best low-spec PC games?” Spelunky is ranked 35th while ZSNES is ranked 61st. The most important reason people chose Spelunky is:
Spelunky features 4 player local co-op where players share the same screen, which can get a bit hectic.
Specs
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Pros
Pro "Compatible" with most games
ZSNES has been in development since the 90's, and in that time has been fixed to run the vast majority of SNES games smoothly.
Due to it's "accuracy", it can run roms that most other emulators would break. Not because the emulation is broken, but because the roms are broken.
Pro Fast playback of ROMs
ZSNES is hand-optimized for x86, so it will run incredibly smoothly even on older computers.
Pro Built-in video capture
Gameplay can be recorded and saved as both raw or lossy files. Quality settings can be tweaked in zmovie.cfg file.
Pro Games can be saved at any point
Pro Multiplayer support
Games can be played with other people over TCP/IP network.
Pro Built-in support for cheat codes
ZSNES supports Game Genie, Pro Action Replay, and GoldFinger cheat codes.
Pro Built-in audio capture
Game audio can be saved to a .spc file.
Pro Can speed-up and rewind games
Pro Up to 4 player local co-op
Spelunky features 4 player local co-op where players share the same screen, which can get a bit hectic.
Pro Provides an interesting challenge by heavily relying on increasing your skill
Spelunky gives the player everything needed to succeed from the start so it is only when the players skills get better will they advance.
Pro Quick sessions so you can play in short bursts
Being that Spelunky is at its heart a roguelike the gameplay sessions can tend to be quick as the player will die quite often. This makes for something that can be played in quick bursts throughout the day. The convenient saving also lends to this as a game that is still ongoing can be quickly saved in order to be picked up at a later time.
Pro Expanded gameplay through mods to improve replayability
Ranging from Mega Man to Metroid, there are a tone of great mods for Spelunky all of which make for a new experience in the game which vastly expands the replayability.
Cons
Con Laughably out of date
Not only was it abandoned over 10 years ago, the strides that other emulators have made in the same time is astounding.
Con Inaccurate compared to competition
ZSNES sacrifices emulation accuracy for speed (relative to e.g. Higan emulator). Sound emulation is a particularly large weakness.
Con Abandoned
While no official statement on discontinuing the software was made, last progress update was posted in 2007 and now seems highly unlikely that any further updates should be expected.
Con Co-op is boring and confusing
In co-op this game is very confusing with little instruction on how to play. With little to spice up the game play, it gets boring quickly.
Con Difficult to the point of frustration
Spelunky is pretty difficult and some could say abusive, but with practice and a desire for masochism the game can be mastered.