Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

GNU Emacs VS Microsoft Forms

Compare GNU Emacs VS Microsoft Forms and see what are their differences

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

GNU Emacs logo GNU Emacs

GNU Emacs is an extensible, customizable text editorโ€”and more.

Microsoft Forms logo Microsoft Forms

Simplistic surveys by Microsoft.
  • GNU Emacs Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-01-19
  • Microsoft Forms Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-27

GNU Emacs features and specs

  • Highly Extensible
    GNU Emacs is highly customizable, allowing users to configure nearly every aspect using Emacs Lisp. This makes it remarkably adaptable for various workflows.
  • Rich Plugin Ecosystem
    There is a wide array of plugins available for Emacs, extending its functionality for programming, text editing, project management, and more.
  • Versatile
    Aside from text editing, Emacs can function as an email client, web browser, terminal emulator, and more, making it a powerful multi-purpose tool.
  • Free and Open Source
    GNU Emacs is free to use and modify, with source code available under the GNU General Public License, encouraging collaborative improvement and transparency.
  • Cross-Platform Support
    Emacs runs on many different operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and various Unix-like systems, ensuring a wide reach and consistent experience across platforms.

Possible disadvantages of GNU Emacs

  • Steep Learning Curve
    Due to its vast array of features and unique keybindings, new users often find Emacs difficult to learn initially.
  • Performance
    Emacs can be slower compared to more lightweight text editors, especially when heavily customized or handling large files.
  • Keyboard-Centric Interface
    Emacs relies heavily on keyboard shortcuts, which can be overwhelming and complex, leading to potential finger strain from extensive use.
  • Complex Configuration
    While its customizability is a strength, configuring Emacs to fit personal needs can be time-consuming and complex, requiring knowledge of Emacs Lisp.

Microsoft Forms features and specs

  • Integration with Microsoft 365
    Microsoft Forms seamlessly integrates with other Microsoft 365 apps such as Excel, SharePoint, and Teams, enhancing collaboration and data management.
  • Ease of Use
    The platform offers a user-friendly interface that simplifies form creation and distribution, making it accessible even to non-technical users.
  • Real-time Collaboration
    Multiple users can collaborate on form creation and data analysis in real-time, fostering teamwork and increasing productivity.
  • Customization Options
    It offers various customization options, including themes, question types, and response validation, allowing users to tailor forms to specific needs.
  • Analytics and Reporting
    Built-in analytics tools provide insights and visualizations directly within Microsoft Forms, aiding in data-driven decision-making.

Possible disadvantages of Microsoft Forms

  • Limited Advanced Features
    Compared to other specialized survey tools, Microsoft Forms lacks some advanced features such as complex branching, advanced logic, and extensive third-party integrations.
  • Design Flexibility
    The platform has limited design customization options, making it less suitable for users looking to create highly branded or unique forms.
  • Response Limits
    Free and some standard Microsoft 365 plans have response limits, which can be restrictive for organizations conducting large-scale surveys.
  • Export Limitations
    Exporting data to other formats or systems can be cumbersome, especially when dealing with large datasets or requiring specific data formats.
  • Dependency on Microsoft Ecosystem
    While integration with Microsoft 365 is a strength, it can also be a limitation for users or organizations that rely on non-Microsoft tools and services.

Analysis of GNU Emacs

Overall verdict

  • GNU Emacs is widely considered to be a powerful and versatile text editor, especially among programmers and developers.

Why this product is good

  • Highly Customizable: Emacs can be extensively customized with Emacs Lisp, enabling users to tailor the editor to fit their specific workflow.
  • Rich Ecosystem: There is a large variety of plug-ins and extensions available, which can transform it into much more than just a text editor.
  • Built-in Tools: Emacs includes numerous built-in tools such as a debugger, calendar, email client, and file manager, making it a comprehensive development environment.
  • Cross-Platform: Emacs runs on multiple platforms, which makes it accessible to a broad audience.

Recommended for

  • Programmers and developers who appreciate a customizable and extensible tool.
  • Users who want to integrate various development tools into a single environment.
  • Individuals comfortable with learning Emacs Lisp to create and understand custom scripts and configurations.
  • People interested in a text editor that has a strong and supportive community.

Analysis of Microsoft Forms

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Microsoft Forms is generally well-regarded as a user-friendly tool for creating and managing online forms.

Why this product is good

  • Microsoft Forms is considered good due to its ease of use, integration with other Microsoft 365 applications, real-time collaboration features, and robust data analysis capabilities. It provides an intuitive interface for creating surveys, quizzes, and polls and offers automatic data export to Excel for further analysis. Additionally, it ensures data security and privacy, adherent to Microsoft's compliance guidelines.

Recommended for

  • Educational institutions requiring tools for quizzes and feedback collection
  • Businesses looking for an integrated solution for customer surveys and employee feedback
  • Teams that already use Microsoft 365 and need seamless integration with other applications
  • Users who require real-time data analysis and collaboration on form responses

GNU Emacs videos

Switching to GNU Emacs

Microsoft Forms videos

Review of Microsoft Forms Pro 2019 โ€ข Office 365 Survey Solution

More videos:

  • Review - Introducing Microsoft Forms Pro
  • Review - Microsoft Forms Pro | Business Applications April 2019 Release

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to GNU Emacs and Microsoft Forms)
Text Editors
100 100%
0% 0
Form Builder
0 0%
100% 100
IDE
100 100%
0% 0
Surveys
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare GNU Emacs and Microsoft Forms

GNU Emacs Reviews

14 BEST LaTeX Editor for Mac & Windows in 2022
Emacs is a Unix based text editor tool which is used by programmers, engineers, students, and system administrators. It is one of the best LaTeX editor for Mac that allows you to add, modify, delete, insert, words, letters, lines, and other units of text.
Source: www.guru99.com
The Top 7 Notepad++ Alternatives for You
Emacs has been around in its various forms since 1976 and is another very worthy Notepad++ alternative. When I first started using Emacs I have to admit that I didnโ€™t find it the easiest to use. But once I got used to it I realized just how powerful Emacs is for the programming community.
10 Best Notepad++ Alternatives in 2020
Emacs is a Unix based text editor tool which is used by programmers, engineers, students, and system administrators. It allows you to add, modify, delete, insert, words, letters, lines, and other units of text.
Source: www.guru99.com
7 open source alternatives to Dreamweaver
Vim or Emacs. Without participating in the holy war between these two traditional text editors, I can safely say that there are a number of enhancements for web editing available for both. So if you're already a terminal junkie, take your pick. Or, if those don't satisfy, try one of these Emacs/Vim alternatives.
Source: opensource.com
10 Best Sublime Text Alternatives in 2019
Emacs is a Unix based text editor tool which is used by programmers, engineers, students, and system administrators. It allows you to add, modify, delete, insert, words, letters, lines, and other units of text.
Source: www.guru99.com

Microsoft Forms Reviews

  1. โœ“ Adrian | Mobile Forms - Digital Inspections - Enterprise Checklists - Data collection
    ยท Marketing at Mobile Forms ยท
    My home inspection form software review of microsoft forms builder

    This is my review of microsoft forms builder used as a home inspection software.

    As a home inspector, I was trying to use Microsoft forms builder as a gathering information tool through surveys as it is an essential part of understanding the needs and preferences of customers and employees, as well as property investors and homeowners.

    There is evidence that customer satisfaction surveys increase customer engagement by differentiating your brand and showing that you care about yourself. Similarly, employee surveys are essential to measuring internal engagement within organizations. This underscores the need for robust tools that effectively report survey/survey responses in a measurable way so that results can facilitate decision-making. That's where MS Forms comes in. With an easy-to-use interface, Forms lets you create short surveys or develop surveys for free as part of the Office 365 suite of applications. While there are other third-party alternatives, such as SurveyMonkey, that have survey and query capabilities, Forms is free under the Office 365 subscription.

    The advantage of Forms is that it offers more seamless integration with other Microsoft applications. In the past, Microsoft had InfoPath, which had the same goal but was more complex to design and start.

    One of the features of Forms to note is Dynamic Customer Voice 365. It's a business feedback management application built into Forms that allows easy tracking of customer measurements by introducing real-time survey data into customer records. It comes with project management capabilities that allow you to gather multiple surveys with similar metrics to simplify analysis, so you can understand how customers see your services. Important: You'll need a paid license to access Dynamic 365 Customer Voice, but it's available for a free 30-day trial.

    From a management perspective, Forms enables business leaders to understand the needs and productivity of employees quickly and effectively. For example, ITW's management team used forms to check with employees during the pandemic. It has been invaluable in providing information and measures on productivity, well-being and assessing employees' remote work needs (e.g., need for office equipment and stationery). This form builder allows any device to connect and contribute to a continuous live survey, with results dynamically visible on the backend, so employees can respond to surveys at a company-wide virtual meeting. The management team can then visualize these responses as they arrive and respond live, creating a more conversational feeling, even in a remote environment.

    Engaged employees are 27% more likely to report "excellent" performance. (Source: Gallup) Microsoft Planner Productivity monitoring and task management are an integral part of inter-team organizational alignment; there is evidence that a work environment where employees feel connected when working on projects increases engagement and productivity. Microsoft Planner is a comprehensive task and work management solution that allows teams to stay connected throughout a project, manage their time and organize. The planner allows you to set up due date notifications so that team members receive reminders about the due date, which maintains connectivity and increases responsibility for tasks. In addition, one of the planner's new features allows you to announce tasks in Teams so users can discuss them in the Team channel.

    Other apps I have reviewed like Monday.com or Smartsheet</a" may provide similar features, but being part of the Microsoft 365 suite, Planner can easily be integrated with other applications on the platform. And of course, the value you get from a free app in Planner far exceeds the cost of payment for any third-party application.

    All in all, personally, I think I have wasted enough time on non specialized form builders until I stumbled upon nSpek. It truly changes the game of home inspections for a... home inspector :D

    You can check out more reviews of inspection software I was able to find, so that you can dive much deeper into the whole software comparison as a property manager.

    ๐Ÿ Competitors: nSpek, ProntoForms, Google Forms

27 Best Typeform Alternatives In 2022 (Free & Paid)
When it comes to choosing a Typeform alternative, you might be looking for the one that can be easily integrated with Excel. Microsoft Forms can do this, and itโ€™s a tremendous online form tool too.
The 11 Best Online Form Builder Apps in 2019
Adding questions to Microsoft Forms is fast and simple: add a question, choose the answer format, and type in your questions and response options. And while Microsoft Forms doesn't offer some of the response types you'll find in Google Formsโ€”it doesn't allow respondents to upload files, for exampleโ€”it does have response types you won't find in Google Forms, like Net Promoter...
Source: zapier.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Microsoft Forms should be more popular than GNU Emacs. It has been mentiond 16 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

GNU Emacs mentions (6)

  • Emacs daemon as sytemd service in debian 12 (gnome)
    Cat .config/systemd/user/default.target.wants/emacs.service [Unit] Description=Emacs text editor Documentation=info:emacs man:emacs(1) https://gnu.org/software/emacs/ [Service] Type=notify ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/emacs --fg-daemon # Emacs will exit with status 15 after having received SIGTERM, which # is the default "KillSignal" value systemd uses to stop services. SuccessExitStatus=15 # The location of the... Source: about 3 years ago
  • Why does emacs exec path variable not just copy the users path variable?
    ## If your Emacs is installed in a non-standard location, you may need ## to copy this file to a standard directory, eg ~/.config/systemd/user/ . ## If you install this file by hand, change the "Exec" lines below ## to use absolute file names for the executables. [Unit] Description=Emacs text editor Documentation=info:emacs man:emacs(1)... Source: over 3 years ago
  • Hi DM's, what medium do you use to organise your campaign?
    For gathering notes, writing and organizing, Org-Roam which implies Org and Emacs. Source: almost 4 years ago
  • This Guy is getting out of control at this point.
    I was heading to gnu.org/software/emacs to prove my point and it said:. Source: over 4 years ago
  • opam doesn't see emacs?
    <><> Version-specific details <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> ๐Ÿซ Version 1 Repository default Homepage: "http://gnu.org/software/emacs" Bug-reports: "https://github.com/ocaml/opam-repository/issues" Authors: "anil@recoil.org" Maintainer: "anil@recoil.org" License: "GPL-1.0-or-later" Flags: conf Synopsis Virtual package to install the Emacs editor Description This... Source: almost 5 years ago
View more

Microsoft Forms mentions (16)

  • MS Forms: Employee to send form and recieve results on his email depending on which employee emails the form (dynamic)
    When you use the word โ€˜formโ€™ in a Microsoft context, readers including myself may assume you are talking about Microsoft forms on https://forms.office.com. Source: about 3 years ago
  • How does your company do its IT Onboarding?
    Make a Microsoft Forms that they have to fill out. Set it to email you when it's completed. Tell people that they have to fill it out properly or they can't have access to anything. The last thing they had before I got here was on PAPER... ISYN. Source: over 3 years ago
  • Microsoft Forms are constantly refreshing and logging out
    You can get to forms.office.com but when you open any form to edit it just constantly refreshes and then kicks you back to a login screen. Source: over 3 years ago
  • How To Create A Fillable Form In Sharepoint Office 365?
    Or just use Microsoft Forms, available at https://forms.office.com. Source: over 3 years ago
  • Easiest Way to Collect Data from Many People at an Organization
    Could you send out a forms link and then collate the data? Source: over 3 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing GNU Emacs and Microsoft Forms, you can also consider the following products

VS Code - Build and debug modern web and cloud applications, by Microsoft

Typeform - Create beautiful, next-generation online forms with Typeform, the form & survey builder that makes asking questions easy & human on any device. Try it FREE!

Sublime Text - Sublime Text is a sophisticated text editor for code, html and prose - any kind of text file. You'll love the slick user interface and extraordinary features. Fully customizable with macros, and syntax highlighting for most major languages.

Google Forms - Simple web forms from Google.

Vim - Highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing

Survey Monkey - Create and publish online surveys in minutes, and view results graphically and in real time. SurveyMonkey provides free online questionnaire and survey software.