# Emacs on Android

8 Hacker News commenters recommended Emacs on Android and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Free Emacs for Android phones and tablets, handy for everyday editing and Org Mode. Caveat: F-Droid build lacks a real Linux environment and works poorly with org-roam.

## Why people recommend it

- Works reliably for everyday use (4 comments): "The menus have all you need. It's not ideal, of course, but it's enough to get you going." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46056191)) "The Android version of Emacs is perfectly fine." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46855256)) "Emacs on Android has carried me through well." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46056145))

## What people warn about

- Weak eglot support for development (1 comments): "you can't really leverage eglot so it's basically a no-go for any meaningful software development" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46054149))
- F-Droid build struggles with org-roam (1 comments): "the fdroid build of emacs doesn't really work very well with my org-roam" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46054348))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Zed](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zed.md): 700 recommend
- [GNU Emacs](https://hackerapproved.com/p/emacs.md): 648 recommend
- [Vim](https://hackerapproved.com/p/vim.md): 513 recommend
- [Visual Studio Code](https://hackerapproved.com/p/visual-studio-code.md): 485 recommend
- [Neovim](https://hackerapproved.com/p/neovim.md): 295 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Emacs on Android", https://hackerapproved.com/p/emacs-on-android/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).