GNU Emacs

What do you like best?

Emacs can do literally anything if you're determined to push past its initial learning curve. I use mine for development, shell access, and most important, for Org Mode, an organizational add-on that I use with the Getting Things Done system to turn Emacs into my personal task organizer.

I'm always finding new uses for it, and Org Mode in particular has been a true lifesaver in terms of keeping me organized.

What do you dislike?

It's got an initial learning curve, and the available learning resources for Emacs are not great. Reference documentation is not the same thing as learning resources, and a lot of the time, if you want to go with vanilla Emacs, you're doing a lot of looking at ancient forum posts from days gone by.

That's why I eventually went with Spacemacs, an Emacs distribution that has helped me along considerably.

What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?

I use Emacs for software development, administration work, and to keep myself organized through Org Mode. By consolidating these many requirements in the scope of a single tool, I feel that I've benefited considerably versus trying to cobble together my own workflow of separate tools.