Emacs can completely emulate vim; vim cannot emulate emacs That is probably not true. The main reason is more probably that nobody wants to emulate emacs in vi

Emacs can completely emulate vim; vim cannot emulate emacs That is probably not true. The main reason is more probably that nobody wants to emulate emacs in vim. Its more telling IMO that emacs people want vim in it. As user slurry above pointed out, its probably because old habits die hard and because people continue doing the same stuff to justify time investment.