I gave Meow a fair shake a year or so ago. I'd say it's currently the most robust mode for implementing Kakoune or Helix-like bindings in Emacs, but you can customize it to be like vim or anything else. It's more lightweight than evil-mode. At present, however, I'm not using modal editing in emacs; just lots of Meta-key shortcuts for movement and a hydra with a key-chord for common commands.