You don't need tabs in Emacs; use buffer instead. Helm has a really good interface to navigate open buffers. I usually have 30-50 buffers open in my emacs. Now how does vim handle that many buffers?
Seriously, people should stop over customizing their .emacs.d . I use mostly default (community) config from Spacemacs and it works just fine. You can use both vi keybinding and emacs keybinding at the sametime in Spacemacs. I reduced 2k+ lines init.el config to about 200 lines in Spacemacs.