Emacs on Android
Ranked 40 of 56 text editors by recommenders
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.
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.
10 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 8
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 80%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 8 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Works reliably for everyday use
“The menus have all you need. It's not ideal, of course, but it's enough to get you going.”
Comment from 26 Nov 2025 in “Surprisingly, Emacs on Android is pretty good” “The Android version of Emacs is perfectly fine.”
Comment from 2 Feb 2026 in “Termux” “Emacs on Android has carried me through well.”
Comment from 26 Nov 2025 in “Surprisingly, Emacs on Android is pretty good” - Comment from 26 Nov 2025 in “Surprisingly, Emacs on Android is pretty good”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Weak eglot support for development
“you can't really leverage eglot so it's basically a no-go for any meaningful software development”
Comment from 26 Nov 2025 in “Surprisingly, Emacs on Android is pretty good” F-Droid build struggles with org-roam
“the fdroid build of emacs doesn't really work very well with my org-roam”
Comment from 26 Nov 2025 in “Surprisingly, Emacs on Android is pretty good”
Other text editors people recommend
The four most recommended other text editors, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zed | 700 | 430 | 62% | 13 | 6 mo57 owners | — |
| GNU Emacs | 648 | 207 | 76% | 13 | 20 yrs158 owners | Approved |
| Vim | 513 | 127 | 80% | 13 | 20 yrs55 owners | Approved |
| Visual Studio Code | 485 | 547 | 47% | 12 | 2 yrs13 owners | — |
| Emacs on AndroidThis page | 8 | 2 | 80% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
9 of the 11 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“The Android version of Emacs is perfectly fine.”
“it actually works great with an Android tablet of 8" or more and a bluetooth keyboard”
“It's just extremely cool to be walking around with a real gnu/linux computer in my pocket, which cost nothing to add to the phone”
“It is already there and it works.”
“The menus have all you need. It's not ideal, of course, but it's enough to get you going.”
“Emacs on Android has carried me through well.”
“the fdroid build of android doesn't have a real linux environment that you can install arbitrary binaries on to”
“the fdroid build of emacs doesn't really work very well with my org-roam”
“you can't really leverage eglot so it's basically a no-go for any meaningful software development”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.