I’ve been using emacs with evil for a while and performance is fine when running it in client-server mode. Vim might be faster opening files on my computer, but if I had as many plugins for vim as I have for emacs, it would likely be as slow, and it’s client-server mode wasn’t as good when I switched.
Have you tried compiling neovim for your own personal use? There are a bunch of possible issues that can arise, like lack of enough space or required dependencies, but if you miss neovim it might be worth trying