Even with all it's features, Vim's direction has always been as a pure text editor. Plugins focus on making editing better, new features help with multiple win

Even with all it's features, Vim's direction has always been as a pure text editor. Plugins focus on making editing better, new features help with multiple windows, making modes easier, etc. Emacs is really a platform who's main use is a text editor. The programming tools are stronger, and it has a few more interactive options when making extensions. This allows developers to create news readers, email clients, web browsers all inside emacs. Much of that could potentially be possible in Vim, but it would require shelling out, and would have a nasty interface in general.