Why hackers moved from IntelliJ IDEA to Emacs
1 hacker described this switch in public comments. Their words, with links to the originals.
What hackers said about the move
“I switched from IntelliJ to emacs for this reason and it’s been great”ATMLOTTOBEER, 2026-03-26original comment ↗
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IntelliJ IDEA vs Emacs
| IntelliJ IDEA | Emacs | |
|---|---|---|
| Hackers who recommend | 0 | 8 |
| Hackers who criticize | 2 | 1 |
| Moved away from it | 2 | 1 |
| Moved to it | 0 | 4 |
Counts are distinct hackers in the sampled comments, not market share.
Criticism of IntelliJ IDEA
“except for IntelliJ, which seems lost”vladvasiliu, 2025-12-25original comment ↗
Praise for Emacs
“Same here! Aside from the basic unix tools in /[usr]/bin/, there is very little software with the longevity of emacs.”jjav, 2026-10-29original comment ↗
“I switched from vi readline mode to emacs recently primarily for Ctrl-r and Alt-. (insert the argument from the last command). I love how interactive they feel.”meken, 2026-09-16original comment ↗
“I recently switched from full IDE to Emacs”KallDrexx, 2026-08-27original comment ↗
“My "stack" is all open-source: from Linux to Emacs to what-have-you.”TacticalCoder, 2026-05-04original comment ↗
“Emacs, for example, has rx notation.”db48x, 2026-01-28original comment ↗
Other moves from IntelliJ IDEA
Other moves to Emacs
- Neovim → Emacs (1)
- vi → Emacs (1)
- vi readline mode → Emacs (1)