[usr1106]

The last 20 years have been OK. Before that not really so.

I remember starting emacs on a VAX-750 with 4 MB main memory and 8 users in the 80s.

Even in the 90s with Suns and competitors in single user usage emacs could bring things to a halt. Especially when starting a certain messaging client (hej LysKOM).

Well, back then emacs was a resource hog like today VSCode using 8GB and swapping as someone wrote here. (I would not touch VSCode with a stick). Times have changed, but emacs rather little. So today it can nearly be considered lightweight and efficient.