I actually went from vim to spacemacs recently, and found it rather nice. I am one of those people who learned to edit with vim, but never like actually making vim my own. No extra stuff, just simple editing.
Then I tried spacemacs, and was sold immediately. I got all of the good things I never took the time to configure in vim for free (or at least at the cost of 600ms longe startup time). I have gone from an IDE lover, to a loon living in spacemacs. As their tagline says: "The best editor is neither Emacs nor Vim, it's Emacs and Vim!"
For me it was the opposite. I went from spacemacs to neovim and used the experience with layers and well structured config to make my neovim experience superb.
The only time I still use spacemacs if I "feel like it" or need one of the exclusive plugins like a good clojure repl. But compared to vim, I found spacemacs rather heavy. Like IntelliJ vs Sublime.
Then I tried spacemacs, and was sold immediately. I got all of the good things I never took the time to configure in vim for free (or at least at the cost of 600ms longe startup time). I have gone from an IDE lover, to a loon living in spacemacs. As their tagline says: "The best editor is neither Emacs nor Vim, it's Emacs and Vim!"