No, you need to use -nw with emacs to make it apples to apples. Then it's emacs 0m0.095s vs nvim 0m0.057s:

    $ time nvim -es --cmd 'vim.cmd("q")'

    real 0m0.057s
    user 0m0.016s
    sys 0m0.017s

    $ time emacs -Q -e kill-emacs

    real 0m0.230s
    user 0m0.165s
    sys 0m0.064s

    $ time emacs -nw -Q -e kill-emacs

    real 0m0.095s
    user 0m0.057s
     sys 0m0.017s

Shouldn't matter when I am not on GUI seat. In my SSH session with X11 forwarding there is no DISPLAY emacs could use.

Tried it anyways, looks the same:

  $ time emacs -nw -Q -e kill-emacs
  real    0m0.075s
  user    0m0.062s
  sys     0m0.013s