emfy

That is true. But it’s pretty overwhelming for a lot of folks. I was a spacemacs user. I tried to rebuild what I liked about it. It was a lot, and I didn’t quite get it there. I finally found a good compromise though. I started over with this confing: https://github.com/susam/emfy From there, I only needed a handful of packages and a few dozen lines of config to get to an editor that was comfy.

I struggled to make the change. I think I tried half a dozen times to go from (neo)vim to Emacs and it never stuck. My problem was that I kept reaching for spacemacs and Doom Emacs, etc., right out of the gate, and I would be mystified by Emacs itself and Emacs Lisp as a result. Two things helped get me into Emacs full-time (and this is after > 15 years of using vim): 1. I went step-by-step through Susam's Emfy Emacs config [0]. That helped me understand some of the basics at a foundational level. I extended that base configuration a little bit and became comfortable with the environment. 2. I then went step-by-step through the entire "Emacs from Scratch" playlist that System Crafters put out [1]. I pushed my personal configuration pretty far with that over the course of 2-3 months. I eventually moved to Doom Emacs and married in pieces o

No need to ask other people about that. Just have a weekend learning Emacs + Lisp and make your own opinion. This configuration (https://github.com/susam/emfy) is a great start. If you like it - use it, if you don't - throw it away. Also, you don't have to fall into a trap of configuring Emacs, well known hackers uses the bare minimum of it and are highly productive. If you're afraid of RSI, you can quickly change default bindings using, for example, Xah-Fly-Keys, or Evil if you're into Vim bindings.

I know it's fast becoming a trope or cliche to suggest this, but Emacs with org-mode and org-roam will do most of what you're wanting. Maybe give https://github.com/susam/emfy a try and see where you get?