{"slug": "doom-emacs", "name": "Doom Emacs", "category": "editors", "category_name": "Editors and IDEs", "description": "An opinionated Emacs configuration framework with Vim keybindings, preconfigured modules and fast startup.", "recommenders": 13, "commenters": 24, "warners": 2, "score": 12.16, "rising": -0.27, "first": "2025-11-01", "latest": "2026-10-28", "why": "HN commenters like Doom Emacs as a quick way to get sane defaults and Vim keybindings in Emacs, and people switching from Neovim describe it as a stable setup that mostly just works.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 13, "neutral": 7, "compare": 3, "warn": 2}, "spark": [3, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 6, 0, 1, 0, 2], "listed": true, "loved": ["Sane defaults", "Vim keybindings"], "caveat": "Hides internals", "short_quote": "Highly recommend just setting up \"Doom Emacs\" as a quick way of configuring emacs w/ evil keybindings plus other niceties.", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://github.com/doomemacs/doomemacs", "pricing": "open source", "aliases": ["Doom Emacs"], "verdict": [{"text": "HN commenters like Doom Emacs as a quick way to get sane defaults and Vim keybindings in Emacs,", "cites": [{"id": 801391440, "item_id": 50086965, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50086965", "by": "Kyo91", "date": "2026-10-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Highly recommend just setting up \"Doom Emacs\" as a quick way of configuring emacs w/ evil keybindings plus other niceties.", "excerpt": "Highly recommend just setting up \"Doom Emacs\" as a quick way of configuring emacs w/ evil keybindings plus other niceties. It strikes a really good balance between sane defaults, and easy expansion.", "context": "", "use_case": "configuring Emacs with evil keybindings", "switched_from": "", "story": "I tried to move my notes out of Emacs. I failed. Again"}, {"id": 776625504, "item_id": 48539094, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48539094", "by": "zelphirkalt", "date": "2026-06-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Or some other distro like Doom Emacs or Spacemacs or stuff like that, if they are after a better out of the box experience.", "excerpt": "I think whoever really wants to know what Emacs is about will give it a try and spend some time with it. Or some other distro like Doom Emacs or Spacemacs or stuff like that, if they are after a better out of the box experience. What truly is a problem and extremely difficult to solve, is getting multi core and concurrency into Emacs properly. A truly concurrent lightweight thing would be so amazing to have and make ", "context": "", "use_case": "better out-of-the-box Emacs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Even More Batteries Included with Emacs"}, {"id": 733457393, "item_id": 45841087, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45841087", "by": "craftkiller", "date": "2025-11-06", "stance": "compare", "quote": "distros like doom/space would be good for avoiding that initial shock/disappointment.", "excerpt": "> What's your take on opinionated distros like Doom Emacs or Spacemacs? If you use vanilla emacs without customization, you are going to have a very basic text editor experience. That is fine if you understand that, and understand that you'll need to start adding your own customizations (like enabling eglot for LSP, and company-mode for code completions, etc) in order to get to an experience closer to what you'd get ", "context": "heavy Emacs user with vanilla config", "use_case": "Emacs starter config", "switched_from": "", "story": "How I am deeply integrating Emacs"}]}, {"text": " and people switching from Neovim describe it as a stable setup that mostly just works.", "cites": [{"id": 804379442, "item_id": 50273715, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50273715", "by": "vr46", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched to Emacs and Doom + eVil, and am relieved to be back in a nice stable system again", "excerpt": "About two or three months ago I ditched Neovim as all the complicated modern crap wasn't working for me, and instead of reverting to Vim, I switched to Emacs and Doom + eVil, and am relieved to be back in a nice stable system again. I did ask GPT to port over my key commands and shortcuts, which it did, and things are great again!", "context": "", "use_case": "Emacs configuration", "switched_from": "Neovim", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 776586448, "item_id": 48536653, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48536653", "by": "QwenGlazer9000", "date": "2026-06-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'm on doom emacs, update once in a while, and everything mostly just works", "excerpt": "All the other comments in this thread talk about emacs instability when that hasn't been the case for me. I'm on doom emacs, update once in a while, and everything mostly just works other than some color scheme weirdness I had to fix. I used to be on neovim, and that ecosystem compared to emacs feels like this image: https://i.imgflip.com/2pg2s7.jpg Some of it is the maintainer shielding us from the breaking changes,", "context": "", "use_case": "code editor", "switched_from": "Neovim", "story": "Even More Batteries Included with Emacs"}, {"id": 742456928, "item_id": 46403558, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46403558", "by": "tacker2000", "date": "2025-12-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "this could finally be a stable platform/ide for once", "excerpt": "Im glad i moved from vscode to neovim last year, and since one month i\u2019ve switched over to emacs, running doom (which gives you vim commands and much more). I\u2019ve set up LSPs, completions, etc and although one needs to read up a little bit at first, i feel that this could finally be a stable platform/ide for once, and i wouldnt need to jump ship every couple of years because of some enshittification.", "context": "", "use_case": "main editor/IDE", "switched_from": "Neovim", "story": "VSCode rebrands as \"The open source AI code editor\""}]}, {"text": " The most common caveat is that newcomers should start with vanilla Emacs first,", "cites": [{"id": 732548640, "item_id": 45784290, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45784290", "by": "foobarqux", "date": "2025-11-01", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Don't use doom etc, just standard emacs, otherwise you won't have any understanding of what is happening and how to fix it.", "excerpt": "Don't use doom etc, just standard emacs, otherwise you won't have any understanding of what is happening and how to fix it. Here's a list of what I think is important, roughly more important to less: - corfu+marginalia+vertico+embark+orderless is the standard completion stack now - magit (maybe also see also the \"casual\" the transient front end for other modes) - avy - (fset 'yes-or-no-p 'y-or-n-p) ; 'Y' or 'N' inste", "context": "", "use_case": "Emacs configuration", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Where to begin with \"modern\" Emacs?"}, {"id": 732540081, "item_id": 45783755, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45783755", "by": "defanor", "date": "2025-11-01", "stance": "warn", "quote": "So I would not recommend those to new users", "excerpt": "I think the usual advice is to try the vanilla Emacs, maybe use better-defaults (either directly or just for inspiration), as it is a relatively light customization. The setups people use tend to be quite different, as do their opinions on packages, so I doubt there is a single satisfactory and agreed upon \"source of truth\". Others' setups may be useful to check out, possibly pages of emacswiki.org, chatter on the #e", "context": "", "use_case": "Emacs configuration", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Where to begin with \"modern\" Emacs?"}, {"id": 732542658, "item_id": 45783916, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45783916", "by": "tammer", "date": "2025-11-01", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "maybe try spacemacs or doom to see if they offer advantages for your workflow", "excerpt": "I will second the recommendation to start with vanilla emacs. That isn't to disparage releases like spacemacs & doom. I simply found those to be more useful once I fully understood the power that comes with a fully reprogrammable editor. There is a learning curve and there is also a mental model to adopt, and I think that adopting the mental model is easier when starting raw and building up from scratch. Once you fee", "context": "", "use_case": "Emacs distribution after learning basics", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Where to begin with \"modern\" Emacs?"}]}, {"text": " because Doom is far removed from it and hides how things work.", "cites": [{"id": 732548640, "item_id": 45784290, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45784290", "by": "foobarqux", "date": "2025-11-01", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Don't use doom etc, just standard emacs, otherwise you won't have any understanding of what is happening and how to fix it.", "excerpt": "Don't use doom etc, just standard emacs, otherwise you won't have any understanding of what is happening and how to fix it. Here's a list of what I think is important, roughly more important to less: - corfu+marginalia+vertico+embark+orderless is the standard completion stack now - magit (maybe also see also the \"casual\" the transient front end for other modes) - avy - (fset 'yes-or-no-p 'y-or-n-p) ; 'Y' or 'N' inste", "context": "", "use_case": "Emacs configuration", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Where to begin with \"modern\" Emacs?"}, {"id": 777358561, "item_id": 48584910, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48584910", "by": "xedrac", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "compare", "quote": "Things like Doom Emacs, and Spacemacs try to solve that problem,  but both feel far removed from vanilla emacs.", "excerpt": "I'm happy to see these improvements. One thing that has always been annoying with Emacs is how much configuration is required to get a modern editor going. Things like Doom Emacs, and Spacemacs try to solve that problem, but both feel far removed from vanilla emacs. I wish Emacs came with several presets so with a single line, you could transform the editor to different base points. For example, most devs want treesi", "context": "", "use_case": "preconfigured Emacs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs 31 Is Around the Corner: The Changes I'm Daily Driving"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Sane defaults", "summary": "Gives a better out-of-the-box Emacs without hundreds of lines of your own config.", "quotes": [{"id": 801391440, "item_id": 50086965, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50086965", "by": "Kyo91", "date": "2026-10-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Highly recommend just setting up \"Doom Emacs\" as a quick way of configuring emacs w/ evil keybindings plus other niceties.", "excerpt": "Highly recommend just setting up \"Doom Emacs\" as a quick way of configuring emacs w/ evil keybindings plus other niceties. It strikes a really good balance between sane defaults, and easy expansion.", "context": "", "use_case": "configuring Emacs with evil keybindings", "switched_from": "", "story": "I tried to move my notes out of Emacs. I failed. Again"}, {"id": 776625504, "item_id": 48539094, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48539094", "by": "zelphirkalt", "date": "2026-06-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Or some other distro like Doom Emacs or Spacemacs or stuff like that, if they are after a better out of the box experience.", "excerpt": "I think whoever really wants to know what Emacs is about will give it a try and spend some time with it. Or some other distro like Doom Emacs or Spacemacs or stuff like that, if they are after a better out of the box experience. What truly is a problem and extremely difficult to solve, is getting multi core and concurrency into Emacs properly. A truly concurrent lightweight thing would be so amazing to have and make ", "context": "", "use_case": "better out-of-the-box Emacs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Even More Batteries Included with Emacs"}, {"id": 733457393, "item_id": 45841087, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45841087", "by": "craftkiller", "date": "2025-11-06", "stance": "compare", "quote": "distros like doom/space would be good for avoiding that initial shock/disappointment.", "excerpt": "> What's your take on opinionated distros like Doom Emacs or Spacemacs? If you use vanilla emacs without customization, you are going to have a very basic text editor experience. That is fine if you understand that, and understand that you'll need to start adding your own customizations (like enabling eglot for LSP, and company-mode for code completions, etc) in order to get to an experience closer to what you'd get ", "context": "heavy Emacs user with vanilla config", "use_case": "Emacs starter config", "switched_from": "", "story": "How I am deeply integrating Emacs"}]}, {"label": "Vim keybindings", "summary": "Evil-mode setup makes moving from Vim or Neovim easier.", "quotes": [{"id": 804379442, "item_id": 50273715, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50273715", "by": "vr46", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched to Emacs and Doom + eVil, and am relieved to be back in a nice stable system again", "excerpt": "About two or three months ago I ditched Neovim as all the complicated modern crap wasn't working for me, and instead of reverting to Vim, I switched to Emacs and Doom + eVil, and am relieved to be back in a nice stable system again. I did ask GPT to port over my key commands and shortcuts, which it did, and things are great again!", "context": "", "use_case": "Emacs configuration", "switched_from": "Neovim", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 801391440, "item_id": 50086965, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50086965", "by": "Kyo91", "date": "2026-10-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Highly recommend just setting up \"Doom Emacs\" as a quick way of configuring emacs w/ evil keybindings plus other niceties.", "excerpt": "Highly recommend just setting up \"Doom Emacs\" as a quick way of configuring emacs w/ evil keybindings plus other niceties. It strikes a really good balance between sane defaults, and easy expansion.", "context": "", "use_case": "configuring Emacs with evil keybindings", "switched_from": "", "story": "I tried to move my notes out of Emacs. I failed. Again"}, {"id": 742456928, "item_id": 46403558, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46403558", "by": "tacker2000", "date": "2025-12-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "this could finally be a stable platform/ide for once", "excerpt": "Im glad i moved from vscode to neovim last year, and since one month i\u2019ve switched over to emacs, running doom (which gives you vim commands and much more). I\u2019ve set up LSPs, completions, etc and although one needs to read up a little bit at first, i feel that this could finally be a stable platform/ide for once, and i wouldnt need to jump ship every couple of years because of some enshittification.", "context": "", "use_case": "main editor/IDE", "switched_from": "Neovim", "story": "VSCode rebrands as \"The open source AI code editor\""}]}, {"label": "Stability", "summary": "Former Neovim users find it stable and say updates mostly just work.", "quotes": [{"id": 804379442, "item_id": 50273715, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50273715", "by": "vr46", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched to Emacs and Doom + eVil, and am relieved to be back in a nice stable system again", "excerpt": "About two or three months ago I ditched Neovim as all the complicated modern crap wasn't working for me, and instead of reverting to Vim, I switched to Emacs and Doom + eVil, and am relieved to be back in a nice stable system again. I did ask GPT to port over my key commands and shortcuts, which it did, and things are great again!", "context": "", "use_case": "Emacs configuration", "switched_from": "Neovim", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 776586448, "item_id": 48536653, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48536653", "by": "QwenGlazer9000", "date": "2026-06-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'm on doom emacs, update once in a while, and everything mostly just works", "excerpt": "All the other comments in this thread talk about emacs instability when that hasn't been the case for me. I'm on doom emacs, update once in a while, and everything mostly just works other than some color scheme weirdness I had to fix. I used to be on neovim, and that ecosystem compared to emacs feels like this image: https://i.imgflip.com/2pg2s7.jpg Some of it is the maintainer shielding us from the breaking changes,", "context": "", "use_case": "code editor", "switched_from": "Neovim", "story": "Even More Batteries Included with Emacs"}, {"id": 742456928, "item_id": 46403558, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46403558", "by": "tacker2000", "date": "2025-12-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "this could finally be a stable platform/ide for once", "excerpt": "Im glad i moved from vscode to neovim last year, and since one month i\u2019ve switched over to emacs, running doom (which gives you vim commands and much more). I\u2019ve set up LSPs, completions, etc and although one needs to read up a little bit at first, i feel that this could finally be a stable platform/ide for once, and i wouldnt need to jump ship every couple of years because of some enshittification.", "context": "", "use_case": "main editor/IDE", "switched_from": "Neovim", "story": "VSCode rebrands as \"The open source AI code editor\""}]}, {"label": "Well-chosen config", "summary": "One user who built a custom config ended up with something similar to Doom and switched to it.", "quotes": [{"id": 777367184, "item_id": 48585449, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48585449", "by": "sukuva", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "ended up getting something similar to Doom Emacs. So, I just switched to use Doom :)", "excerpt": "I spent a lot of time making my own elisp config for a custom emacs experience and ended up getting something similar to Doom Emacs. So, I just switched to use Doom :)", "context": "", "use_case": "Emacs configuration", "switched_from": "custom elisp config", "story": "Emacs 31 Is Around the Corner: The Changes I'm Daily Driving"}, {"id": 777369808, "item_id": 48585613, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48585613", "by": "kccqzy", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Doom Emacs and Spacemacs are both very good", "excerpt": "You are just worrying for no good reason. Doom Emacs and Spacemacs are both very good; being far removed from vanilla emacs is not a problem to be worried about.", "context": "", "use_case": "Emacs configuration framework", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs 31 Is Around the Corner: The Changes I'm Daily Driving"}]}, {"label": "Workflow power", "summary": "Used for org-mode note-taking and as a multi-project AI agent workflow.", "quotes": [{"id": 779483123, "item_id": 48717695, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48717695", "by": "isityettime", "date": "2026-06-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use agent-shell with Projectile on Doom Emacs as my main workflow these days", "excerpt": "Once you get it set up, Emacs is a pretty damn good \"agent\" multiplexer as well. I use agent-shell with Projectile on Doom Emacs as my main workflow these days, and it works very well even if I have 6 projects open or whatever. Claude and Codex are also both quite good at working with Emacs as well. Depending on your isolation/sandboxing strategy, they can either run commands against your session via emacsclient (a b", "context": "", "use_case": "main editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "Herdr: Agent multiplexer that lives in your terminal"}, {"id": 732573810, "item_id": 45785863, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45785863", "by": "I_complete_me", "date": "2025-11-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I found it to be totally workable, initially, via doom-emacs.", "excerpt": "IANAD I am not a developer. I got into vim because it made total sense to me as a way to transfer thoughts to words, I loved it , I lived it and I love it and live it. Then I heard about emacs org-mode \u2013 after trying for ages to find the \"software to organise my life\" (pick your poison). I found it to be totally workable, initially, via doom-emacs. Then they said \"You won't believe Magit\". I didn't leave my wife, ins", "context": "not a developer", "use_case": "running Emacs org-mode", "switched_from": "Vim", "story": "Ask HN: Where to begin with \"modern\" Emacs?"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Hides internals", "summary": "Some advise learning vanilla Emacs first so you understand what is happening and can fix it.", "quotes": [{"id": 732548640, "item_id": 45784290, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45784290", "by": "foobarqux", "date": "2025-11-01", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Don't use doom etc, just standard emacs, otherwise you won't have any understanding of what is happening and how to fix it.", "excerpt": "Don't use doom etc, just standard emacs, otherwise you won't have any understanding of what is happening and how to fix it. Here's a list of what I think is important, roughly more important to less: - corfu+marginalia+vertico+embark+orderless is the standard completion stack now - magit (maybe also see also the \"casual\" the transient front end for other modes) - avy - (fset 'yes-or-no-p 'y-or-n-p) ; 'Y' or 'N' inste", "context": "", "use_case": "Emacs configuration", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Where to begin with \"modern\" Emacs?"}, {"id": 732542658, "item_id": 45783916, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45783916", "by": "tammer", "date": "2025-11-01", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "maybe try spacemacs or doom to see if they offer advantages for your workflow", "excerpt": "I will second the recommendation to start with vanilla emacs. That isn't to disparage releases like spacemacs & doom. I simply found those to be more useful once I fully understood the power that comes with a fully reprogrammable editor. There is a learning curve and there is also a mental model to adopt, and I think that adopting the mental model is easier when starting raw and building up from scratch. Once you fee", "context": "", "use_case": "Emacs distribution after learning basics", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Where to begin with \"modern\" Emacs?"}, {"id": 732540081, "item_id": 45783755, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45783755", "by": "defanor", "date": "2025-11-01", "stance": "warn", "quote": "So I would not recommend those to new users", "excerpt": "I think the usual advice is to try the vanilla Emacs, maybe use better-defaults (either directly or just for inspiration), as it is a relatively light customization. The setups people use tend to be quite different, as do their opinions on packages, so I doubt there is a single satisfactory and agreed upon \"source of truth\". Others' setups may be useful to check out, possibly pages of emacswiki.org, chatter on the #e", "context": "", "use_case": "Emacs configuration", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Where to begin with \"modern\" Emacs?"}]}, {"label": "Far from vanilla", "summary": "It feels far removed from standard Emacs, though others say that is not a problem.", "quotes": [{"id": 777358561, "item_id": 48584910, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48584910", "by": "xedrac", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "compare", "quote": "Things like Doom Emacs, and Spacemacs try to solve that problem,  but both feel far removed from vanilla emacs.", "excerpt": "I'm happy to see these improvements. One thing that has always been annoying with Emacs is how much configuration is required to get a modern editor going. Things like Doom Emacs, and Spacemacs try to solve that problem, but both feel far removed from vanilla emacs. I wish Emacs came with several presets so with a single line, you could transform the editor to different base points. For example, most devs want treesi", "context": "", "use_case": "preconfigured Emacs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs 31 Is Around the Corner: The Changes I'm Daily Driving"}, {"id": 777369808, "item_id": 48585613, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48585613", "by": "kccqzy", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Doom Emacs and Spacemacs are both very good", "excerpt": "You are just worrying for no good reason. Doom Emacs and Spacemacs are both very good; being far removed from vanilla emacs is not a problem to be worried about.", "context": "", "use_case": "Emacs configuration framework", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs 31 Is Around the Corner: The Changes I'm Daily Driving"}]}, {"label": "Display quirks", "summary": "Users had to fix rendering and color scheme issues, such as switching to pgtk for Wayland.", "quotes": [{"id": 777481136, "item_id": 48592571, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48592571", "by": "arikrahman", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I have been using an unstraigtened version of Doom Emacs", "excerpt": "I have been using an unstraigtened version of Doom Emacs, and had a lot of issues with the behavior on wake. It turned out the underlying rendering technology was faulty and changing to pgtk fixed it. Sometimes going back to basics forces discovery that is transferrable, like distro-hopping tor DAW switching.", "context": "", "use_case": "Emacs distribution", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs, how it all started (for me)"}, {"id": 768209249, "item_id": 48013078, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48013078", "by": "arikrahman", "date": "2026-05-04", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use a doom emacs overlay that uses pgtk so it works flawlessly on wayland", "excerpt": "I do it declaratively, however I specifically use an unstraightened version. [[https://github.com/marienz/nix-doom-emacs-unstraightened][marienz/nix-doom-emacs-unstraightened: Builds Doom Emacs using Nix]] I use a doom emacs overlay that uses pgtk so it works flawlessly on wayland, since I only learned recently that it uses X by default. You can inspect my dotfiles here: [[https://github.com/ArikRahman/dotfiles][Arik", "context": "Wayland user", "use_case": "editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "I have officially retired from Emacs"}, {"id": 776586448, "item_id": 48536653, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48536653", "by": "QwenGlazer9000", "date": "2026-06-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'm on doom emacs, update once in a while, and everything mostly just works", "excerpt": "All the other comments in this thread talk about emacs instability when that hasn't been the case for me. I'm on doom emacs, update once in a while, and everything mostly just works other than some color scheme weirdness I had to fix. I used to be on neovim, and that ecosystem compared to emacs feels like this image: https://i.imgflip.com/2pg2s7.jpg Some of it is the maintainer shielding us from the breaking changes,", "context": "", "use_case": "code editor", "switched_from": "Neovim", "story": "Even More Batteries Included with Emacs"}]}, {"label": "More than needed", "summary": "One user moved back to Neovim after realizing they just wanted a good text editor.", "quotes": [{"id": 776593921, "item_id": 48537120, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48537120", "by": "royal__", "date": "2026-06-14", "stance": "compare", "quote": "I just switched from Doom Emacs to Neovim", "excerpt": "Can you explain more what's wrong with the Neovim ecosystem? I just switched from Doom Emacs to Neovim and my impression of Neovim has been much better. (I get that Emacs has a much more powerful backbone, I just realized that I didn't really need that power; I just want a good text editor)", "context": "", "use_case": "text editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Even More Batteries Included with Emacs"}]}], "who": [{"by": "taude", "context": "former heavy Emacs user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49465830", "date": "2026-08-27"}, {"by": "noelwelsh", "context": "Doom Emacs user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48492505", "date": "2026-06-11"}, {"by": "arikrahman", "context": "Wayland user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48013078", "date": "2026-05-04"}, {"by": "eamonnsullivan", "context": "Emacs user for over 30 years", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45944450", "date": "2025-11-16"}, {"by": "I_complete_me", "context": "not a developer", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45785863", "date": "2025-11-01"}, {"by": "auslegung", "context": "came to Emacs from vim", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45784987", "date": "2025-11-01"}], "tags": ["for Vim users", "for Neovim switchers", "for org-mode users", "for Nix users", "for AI agent workflows"], "use_cases": ["emacs configuration", "text editing", "emacs distribution", "editor", "configuring emacs with evil keybindings", "notes and org-mode"], "compared": [{"slug": "neovim", "name": "Neovim", "co": 5, "switched_from": 3, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "emacs", "name": "Emacs", "co": 12, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "spacemacs", "name": "Spacemacs", "co": 11, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "vim", "name": "Vim", "co": 2, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "emacs-bedrock", "name": "Emacs Bedrock", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "minimal-emacs-d", "name": "minimal-emacs.d", "co": 1, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "evil-mode", "name": "Evil-mode", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "magit", "name": "Magit", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45783376", "title": "Ask HN: Where to begin with \"modern\" Emacs?", "mentions": 7}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48535886", "title": "Even More Batteries Included with Emacs", "mentions": 4}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48584135", "title": "Emacs 31 Is Around the Corner: The Changes I'm Daily Driving", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49464543", "title": "Emacs 31: An unofficial guide to Markdown-ts-mode", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50273171", "title": "Emacs Turns 50", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49998350", "title": "I tried to move my notes out of Emacs. I failed. Again", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"warn": 2, "neutral": 3, "recommend": 3, "compare": 1}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-06": {"neutral": 2, "recommend": 6, "compare": 2}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 2}}, "quotes": [{"id": 804379442, "item_id": 50273715, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50273715", "by": "vr46", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched to Emacs and Doom + eVil, and am relieved to be back in a nice stable system again", "excerpt": "About two or three months ago I ditched Neovim as all the complicated modern crap wasn't working for me, and instead of reverting to Vim, I switched to Emacs and Doom + eVil, and am relieved to be back in a nice stable system again. I did ask GPT to port over my key commands and shortcuts, which it did, and things are great again!", "context": "", "use_case": "Emacs configuration", "switched_from": "Neovim", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 801391440, "item_id": 50086965, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50086965", "by": "Kyo91", "date": "2026-10-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Highly recommend just setting up \"Doom Emacs\" as a quick way of configuring emacs w/ evil keybindings plus other niceties.", "excerpt": "Highly recommend just setting up \"Doom Emacs\" as a quick way of configuring emacs w/ evil keybindings plus other niceties. It strikes a really good balance between sane defaults, and easy expansion.", "context": "", "use_case": "configuring Emacs with evil keybindings", "switched_from": "", "story": "I tried to move my notes out of Emacs. I failed. Again"}, {"id": 791486128, "item_id": 49467883, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49467883", "by": "seamossfet", "date": "2026-08-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "just switched to doom emacs this month, absolutely loving it tbh", "excerpt": "just switched to doom emacs this month, absolutely loving it tbh", "context": "", "use_case": "text editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs 31: An unofficial guide to Markdown-ts-mode"}, {"id": 791453281, "item_id": 49465830, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49465830", "by": "taude", "date": "2026-08-27", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used DoomEmacs most recently", "excerpt": "One of the biggest reason I've stopped using Emacs, and I was a pretty heavy user before was that org-mode files weren't fully native Markdown files, which caused annoying friction when collaborating with others. It would be interesting for me to have a new markdown-centric org-mode thing. I'd love to vibe lisp to customize my workflows, and I don't totally love Obsidian, which is what I've setup and configured now. ", "context": "former heavy Emacs user", "use_case": "notes and org-mode", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs 31: An unofficial guide to Markdown-ts-mode"}, {"id": 779483123, "item_id": 48717695, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48717695", "by": "isityettime", "date": "2026-06-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use agent-shell with Projectile on Doom Emacs as my main workflow these days", "excerpt": "Once you get it set up, Emacs is a pretty damn good \"agent\" multiplexer as well. I use agent-shell with Projectile on Doom Emacs as my main workflow these days, and it works very well even if I have 6 projects open or whatever. Claude and Codex are also both quite good at working with Emacs as well. Depending on your isolation/sandboxing strategy, they can either run commands against your session via emacsclient (a b", "context": "", "use_case": "main editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "Herdr: Agent multiplexer that lives in your terminal"}, {"id": 777481136, "item_id": 48592571, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48592571", "by": "arikrahman", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I have been using an unstraigtened version of Doom Emacs", "excerpt": "I have been using an unstraigtened version of Doom Emacs, and had a lot of issues with the behavior on wake. It turned out the underlying rendering technology was faulty and changing to pgtk fixed it. Sometimes going back to basics forces discovery that is transferrable, like distro-hopping tor DAW switching.", "context": "", "use_case": "Emacs distribution", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs, how it all started (for me)"}, {"id": 777369808, "item_id": 48585613, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48585613", "by": "kccqzy", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Doom Emacs and Spacemacs are both very good", "excerpt": "You are just worrying for no good reason. Doom Emacs and Spacemacs are both very good; being far removed from vanilla emacs is not a problem to be worried about.", "context": "", "use_case": "Emacs configuration framework", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs 31 Is Around the Corner: The Changes I'm Daily Driving"}, {"id": 777367184, "item_id": 48585449, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48585449", "by": "sukuva", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "ended up getting something similar to Doom Emacs. So, I just switched to use Doom :)", "excerpt": "I spent a lot of time making my own elisp config for a custom emacs experience and ended up getting something similar to Doom Emacs. So, I just switched to use Doom :)", "context": "", "use_case": "Emacs configuration", "switched_from": "custom elisp config", "story": "Emacs 31 Is Around the Corner: The Changes I'm Daily Driving"}, {"id": 777358561, "item_id": 48584910, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48584910", "by": "xedrac", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "compare", "quote": "Things like Doom Emacs, and Spacemacs try to solve that problem,  but both feel far removed from vanilla emacs.", "excerpt": "I'm happy to see these improvements. One thing that has always been annoying with Emacs is how much configuration is required to get a modern editor going. Things like Doom Emacs, and Spacemacs try to solve that problem, but both feel far removed from vanilla emacs. I wish Emacs came with several presets so with a single line, you could transform the editor to different base points. For example, most devs want treesi", "context": "", "use_case": "preconfigured Emacs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs 31 Is Around the Corner: The Changes I'm Daily Driving"}, {"id": 776625504, "item_id": 48539094, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48539094", "by": "zelphirkalt", "date": "2026-06-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Or some other distro like Doom Emacs or Spacemacs or stuff like that, if they are after a better out of the box experience.", "excerpt": "I think whoever really wants to know what Emacs is about will give it a try and spend some time with it. Or some other distro like Doom Emacs or Spacemacs or stuff like that, if they are after a better out of the box experience. What truly is a problem and extremely difficult to solve, is getting multi core and concurrency into Emacs properly. A truly concurrent lightweight thing would be so amazing to have and make ", "context": "", "use_case": "better out-of-the-box Emacs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Even More Batteries Included with Emacs"}, {"id": 776595265, "item_id": 48537204, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48537204", "by": "rjzzleep", "date": "2026-06-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I agree with the assessment of doom emacs vs neovim.", "excerpt": "LSPs keep getting reimplemented, package managers keep getting reimplemented. It's a bit like the react version of text editors. I used it more than I use emacs, but I agree with the assessment of doom emacs vs neovim.", "context": "", "use_case": "text editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Even More Batteries Included with Emacs"}, {"id": 776593921, "item_id": 48537120, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48537120", "by": "royal__", "date": "2026-06-14", "stance": "compare", "quote": "I just switched from Doom Emacs to Neovim", "excerpt": "Can you explain more what's wrong with the Neovim ecosystem? I just switched from Doom Emacs to Neovim and my impression of Neovim has been much better. (I get that Emacs has a much more powerful backbone, I just realized that I didn't really need that power; I just want a good text editor)", "context": "", "use_case": "text editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Even More Batteries Included with Emacs"}, {"id": 776586448, "item_id": 48536653, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48536653", "by": "QwenGlazer9000", "date": "2026-06-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'm on doom emacs, update once in a while, and everything mostly just works", "excerpt": "All the other comments in this thread talk about emacs instability when that hasn't been the case for me. I'm on doom emacs, update once in a while, and everything mostly just works other than some color scheme weirdness I had to fix. I used to be on neovim, and that ecosystem compared to emacs feels like this image: https://i.imgflip.com/2pg2s7.jpg Some of it is the maintainer shielding us from the breaking changes,", "context": "", "use_case": "code editor", "switched_from": "Neovim", "story": "Even More Batteries Included with Emacs"}, {"id": 775880080, "item_id": 48492505, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48492505", "by": "noelwelsh", "date": "2026-06-11", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "these days I'm a Doom Emacs user", "excerpt": "I love this. (I probably won't use it as these days I'm a Doom Emacs user and don't want to monkey around with my setup too much, but the concept is great.) The guy's whole website is also worth clicking around. A huge amount of effort.", "context": "Doom Emacs user", "use_case": "editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "SVG-Line: Better Status Bars for Emacs \u2013 Charlie Holland's Blog"}, {"id": 768209249, "item_id": 48013078, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48013078", "by": "arikrahman", "date": "2026-05-04", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use a doom emacs overlay that uses pgtk so it works flawlessly on wayland", "excerpt": "I do it declaratively, however I specifically use an unstraightened version. [[https://github.com/marienz/nix-doom-emacs-unstraightened][marienz/nix-doom-emacs-unstraightened: Builds Doom Emacs using Nix]] I use a doom emacs overlay that uses pgtk so it works flawlessly on wayland, since I only learned recently that it uses X by default. You can inspect my dotfiles here: [[https://github.com/ArikRahman/dotfiles][Arik", "context": "Wayland user", "use_case": "editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "I have officially retired from Emacs"}, {"id": 742456928, "item_id": 46403558, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46403558", "by": "tacker2000", "date": "2025-12-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "this could finally be a stable platform/ide for once", "excerpt": "Im glad i moved from vscode to neovim last year, and since one month i\u2019ve switched over to emacs, running doom (which gives you vim commands and much more). I\u2019ve set up LSPs, completions, etc and although one needs to read up a little bit at first, i feel that this could finally be a stable platform/ide for once, and i wouldnt need to jump ship every couple of years because of some enshittification.", "context": "", "use_case": "main editor/IDE", "switched_from": "Neovim", "story": "VSCode rebrands as \"The open source AI code editor\""}, {"id": 735111202, "item_id": 45944450, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45944450", "by": "eamonnsullivan", "date": "2025-11-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love these packages (like this, Spacemacs, Doom, etc.)", "excerpt": "I love these packages (like this, Spacemacs, Doom, etc.), even though I've used Emacs for over 30 years. I don't use them directly, but they give me ideas and alert me to packages I haven't heard of (eat?). And that gives me an excuse to go on another round of config-tweaking, which any Emacs user loves.", "context": "Emacs user for over 30 years", "use_case": "ideas for Emacs config", "switched_from": "", "story": "IDEmacs: A Visual Studio Code clone for Emacs"}, {"id": 733457393, "item_id": 45841087, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45841087", "by": "craftkiller", "date": "2025-11-06", "stance": "compare", "quote": "distros like doom/space would be good for avoiding that initial shock/disappointment.", "excerpt": "> What's your take on opinionated distros like Doom Emacs or Spacemacs? If you use vanilla emacs without customization, you are going to have a very basic text editor experience. That is fine if you understand that, and understand that you'll need to start adding your own customizations (like enabling eglot for LSP, and company-mode for code completions, etc) in order to get to an experience closer to what you'd get ", "context": "heavy Emacs user with vanilla config", "use_case": "Emacs starter config", "switched_from": "", "story": "How I am deeply integrating Emacs"}, {"id": 732573810, "item_id": 45785863, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45785863", "by": "I_complete_me", "date": "2025-11-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I found it to be totally workable, initially, via doom-emacs.", "excerpt": "IANAD I am not a developer. I got into vim because it made total sense to me as a way to transfer thoughts to words, I loved it , I lived it and I love it and live it. Then I heard about emacs org-mode \u2013 after trying for ages to find the \"software to organise my life\" (pick your poison). I found it to be totally workable, initially, via doom-emacs. Then they said \"You won't believe Magit\". I didn't leave my wife, ins", "context": "not a developer", "use_case": "running Emacs org-mode", "switched_from": "Vim", "story": "Ask HN: Where to begin with \"modern\" Emacs?"}, {"id": 732559792, "item_id": 45784987, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45784987", "by": "auslegung", "date": "2025-11-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I suggest trying out Doom and maybe some other configs to see what's available", "excerpt": "I suggest trying out Doom and maybe some other configs to see what's available, and if you want to roll your own you can choose the things you like most from them. I came to emacs from [n]vim and using evil-mode was _very_ helpful in making the switch easier so I recommend that", "context": "came to Emacs from vim", "use_case": "learning Emacs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Where to begin with \"modern\" Emacs?"}, {"id": 732550865, "item_id": 45784429, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45784429", "by": "kleinishere", "date": "2025-11-01", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used Doom for a couple months.", "excerpt": "Came here to find this. MANY upvotes. I used Doom for a couple months. Then started considering a vanilla eMacs. I started taking notes on packages I found highly recommended and interesting. Then I found this. And the author has done all that work and then made it into a \u201clet me walk through a config\u201d including a lot of the most recommended packages and sensible configs. Gives you the lesson of building a config, kn", "context": "", "use_case": "Emacs distribution", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Where to begin with \"modern\" Emacs?"}, {"id": 732548640, "item_id": 45784290, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45784290", "by": "foobarqux", "date": "2025-11-01", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Don't use doom etc, just standard emacs, otherwise you won't have any understanding of what is happening and how to fix it.", "excerpt": "Don't use doom etc, just standard emacs, otherwise you won't have any understanding of what is happening and how to fix it. Here's a list of what I think is important, roughly more important to less: - corfu+marginalia+vertico+embark+orderless is the standard completion stack now - magit (maybe also see also the \"casual\" the transient front end for other modes) - avy - (fset 'yes-or-no-p 'y-or-n-p) ; 'Y' or 'N' inste", "context": "", "use_case": "Emacs configuration", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Where to begin with \"modern\" Emacs?"}, {"id": 732542658, "item_id": 45783916, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45783916", "by": "tammer", "date": "2025-11-01", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "maybe try spacemacs or doom to see if they offer advantages for your workflow", "excerpt": "I will second the recommendation to start with vanilla emacs. That isn't to disparage releases like spacemacs & doom. I simply found those to be more useful once I fully understood the power that comes with a fully reprogrammable editor. There is a learning curve and there is also a mental model to adopt, and I think that adopting the mental model is easier when starting raw and building up from scratch. Once you fee", "context": "", "use_case": "Emacs distribution after learning basics", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Where to begin with \"modern\" Emacs?"}, {"id": 732540582, "item_id": 45783786, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45783786", "by": "mijoharas", "date": "2025-11-01", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "It's similar to doom, in that it makes some decisions for you", "excerpt": "I've been using emacs for a decade by now. I'd look into spacemacs (what I use). It's similar to doom, in that it makes some decisions for you, but you can very much have a customized experience. I for instance have a lot of \"stock\" sections, and other things that are very customized that I've made myself. Look into the \"layers\" (sets of packages that work together). I'd particularly recommend checking out the comple", "context": "", "use_case": "Emacs configuration", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Where to begin with \"modern\" Emacs?"}, {"id": 732540081, "item_id": 45783755, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45783755", "by": "defanor", "date": "2025-11-01", "stance": "warn", "quote": "So I would not recommend those to new users", "excerpt": "I think the usual advice is to try the vanilla Emacs, maybe use better-defaults (either directly or just for inspiration), as it is a relatively light customization. The setups people use tend to be quite different, as do their opinions on packages, so I doubt there is a single satisfactory and agreed upon \"source of truth\". Others' setups may be useful to check out, possibly pages of emacswiki.org, chatter on the #e", "context": "", "use_case": "Emacs configuration", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Where to begin with \"modern\" Emacs?"}]}