minimal-emacs.d by James Cherti
Shares rank 5 of 6 Emacs distributions by recommenders
People recommend it as a compact starting config that sets vanilla Emacs to a good default and teaches you to understand and change your own setup.
People recommend it as a compact starting config that sets vanilla Emacs to a good default and teaches you to understand and change your own setup.
6 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 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
Teaches you to understand and own config
“Gives you the lesson of building a config, knowing what's in your config, and then being fluent in changing it.”
Comment from 1 Nov 2025 in “Ask HN: Where to begin with "modern" Emacs?” “is a great starting point for owning your config”
Comment from 1 Nov 2025 in “Ask HN: Where to begin with "modern" Emacs?” Good starting point for vanilla Emacs
“a compact init.el and early-init.el that configures vanilla emacs into a good, default state”
Comment from 1 Nov 2025 in “Ask HN: Where to begin with "modern" Emacs?” “is a great starting point for owning your config”
Comment from 1 Nov 2025 in “Ask HN: Where to begin with "modern" Emacs?”
Other Emacs distributions people recommend
The four most recommended other Emacs distributions, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Doom Emacs | 60 | 23 | 72% | 11 | 1 yr8 owners | Approved |
| Spacemacs | 24 | 17 | 59% | 10 | — | — |
| Emacs Bedrock | 21 | 1 | 95% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Emacs Solo | 7 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
| minimal-emacs.d by James ChertiThis page | 6 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
5 of the 6 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“find that it suits my tastes a lot better”
“Good recommendation, you (the reader) may also like”
“a compact init.el and early-init.el that configures vanilla emacs into a good, default state”
“Gives you the lesson of building a config, knowing what's in your config, and then being fluent in changing it.”
“is a great starting point for owning your config”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.