1. OP never mentioned VIM, so I do not see how it's relevant to compare EMACS to that - editor wars are long over ;) 2. OP asked for an alternative to EMACS for ORG-mode editing, as he obviously does not wants to use EMACS at the current time being.

Just saying that it's all so easy and making peoples issue with a complex editor like EMACS seem irrelevant or non-existing won't help anybody.

So, some alternatives to EMACS seem to be:

* for VS Code: https://github.com/vscode-org-mode/vscode-org-mode

* for vim: https://github.com/jceb/vim-orgmode

* for atom: https://atom.io/packages/organized

* sublime: https://github.com/danielmagnussons/orgmode

Also, some more information about integration can be found at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Org-mode#Integration

Why are you comparing Emacs to primarily modal editors? This discussion is not about those.

You can't use Emacs as notepad.exe, and comparing it with vim shows how low you're setting the bar. Out of the box it doesn't even have standard ctl-zxcv shortcuts. The keybindings it does have are terrible and give RSI, and crucially because there's a whole ecosystem of addons that try not to collide, they can never be changed, which is why CUA mode isn't default.

Some of us just don't want to 'invest' in tools that are profoundly flawed and will never be fixed, to the extent of causing physical injury.

> The keybindings it does have are terrible and give RSI, and crucially because there's a whole ecosystem of addons that try not to collide, they can never be changed, which is why CUA mode isn't default.

Everything you are claiming is wrong. I came to Emacs from the Apple HIG shortcut world (which btw, Apple copied from PARC), and I think the keyboard shortcuts Emacs comes with are better thought out and more ergonomic to use. That is why they are the default (Emacs users prefer them), instead of cua-mode, which comes with Emacs and is easily activated.

Emacs key bindings are also far easier to change that in any other application, because Emacs keymaps are first-class objects with inheritance and are separate from commands. That is why Emacs can easily support not just completely different keyboard shortcuts, but completely different input methods such as modal editing.

> what makes you think Emacs has a high learning curve?

The fact that I need to constantly look up how to do stuff and the modifications that I want to make work as I want them to only some of the time.

The fact that on more than one occasion, I've downloaded Emacs, started using it and gave up after less than an hour because of how unclear things are.

The default configuration of both ViM and Emacs are both pretty unerognomic. And both can be configured to work in pretty much the same way. Both have plugins.