Recommendation to a former Vimmer who wants to try Emacs to avoid Spacemacs IMO is irrational. Spacemacs and Doom-emacs are the best things to try. Spacemacs is well documented, community supported and extremely popular among former Vimmers. Trying to learn and configure Emacs from scratch usually does the opposite effect - an overwhelmed person gives up and runs back to the comfort of the familiar tool.