The Edit Mesh modifier provides a variety of tools for editing all sub-object levels of the selected object: Vertex, Edge, and Face/Polygon/Element.
Edit Mesh modifier matches all the capabilities of the base Editable Mesh object, except that you cannot animate sub-objects in Edit Mesh. See Editable Mesh for a complete parameter reference.
When possible, it’s far more efficient and reliable to perform explicit modeling at the Editable Mesh level rather than store those edits within the Edit Mesh modifier. The Edit Mesh modifier must copy the geometry passed to it, and this storage can lead to large file sizes. The Edit Mesh modifier also establishes a topological dependency that can be adversely affected if earlier operations change the topology being sent to it.
There are, however, situations where using the Edit Mesh modifier is the preferred method: