There is a big difference between those two. Vim is an editor or, to be precise, an āeditor with benefitsā. Despite the common belief, Emacs is not an editor . Essentially, Emacs is an Elisp interpreter. What it does is running programs written in Elisp, a special (built-in) version of Lisp. Now, countless of Elisp programs, even huge packages, do exist (major and minor āmodesā in Emacs terminology). Those make Emacs able to do whatever the developer wants, includingā¦ editing text. And even editing text can be done in many ways, for example you can make Emacs behave pretty much likeā¦ Vim (this is jokingly called the āevil modeā).
But since you are not restricted to editing text, you will find pretty much every kind of Emacs applications, too many to mention them all. Some of them are: web browser, pdf viewer, image viewer, screen reader, computer algebra system GUI with LaTeX pretty printing, several games, or even its own window manager. And that is the tip of the iceberg; I didnāt even touch the beast called org mode, mentioned above by @nbehrnd. People did all kinds of crazy things for Emacs (for example, you can be completely blind an play Tetris, all within Emacs).
For all those reasons, some people semi-seriously call Emacs an āoperating systemā, in the sense you can turn on your computer, run Emacs and never leave it. In fact, I do that often at home, and always when I am not at home, since for extra portability I only have an old Netbook with me. The real operating system doesnāt matter, I just launch Emacs and thatās it.
Now, Emacsā default text editor is huge, and many of the extra modes are enabled by default (thatās why some people call Emacs ābloatedā) - it is, however, extremely customizable, so you can set your own default state however you wish. In short, as an editor, Emacs meansā¦ be prepared to hit Control+something or Alt+something a lot.
Vim, on the other hand, is a very good editor, with a different philosophy than most other text editors: itās based on two different modes, the command and editing mode. This might be frustrating in the beginning, but you get used to it quickly. In short, be prepared to Hit Esc and ā:ā a lot. It has a lot to offer, and it can be used as an IDE (I did that in the past for several years, until I decided to give Emacs a serious try).
Overall, Iād say Vim is easier to learn, while Emacs has a more steep learning curve - but in my opinion it pays off. Which one is ābetterā? None. They are different things, even if you are just looking for a new editor, so I donāt think you can really compare them.
I would say, give them both a try and see which one fits your needs. They both have built-in tutorials and help, so you donāt need a book to start using them. Whenever you end up needing a book, that would probably mean you know which one you like, and you are looking for more āspecialā features. If Emacs is that one, the book mentioned by @Beliavsky is a great choice.