In years past, the topic of emulation could spark some bad feeling about piracy, but I think its a fair question.
Just the other day, a RetroPie article was posted on Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/06/one-upping-the-nes-classic-edition-with-the-raspberry-pi-3-and-retropie/Emulation has gone from modding a console to what companies like Nintendo are doing to resell their classic games, yet again, in little bundles for use on HD tvs. The functions of the NES Classic can be duplicated on the Retro Pie for about the same price, and the RetroPie can be loaded with more emulators and ROMS. Emulation of 8 and 16 bit consoles on these systems seems to be pretty good. Of course, its the "loaded with ROMS" part that used to cause the conflict in the past.
So "Real Console or Emulation" - if your sites are on 8 and 16 bit games, then emulation on a Retro Pie seems like a perfectly functional way to achieve that, with modest costs and taking up very little space.
Personally, I really like playing on vintage hardware. I find having lots of ROMS encourages quick sampling of games, instead of playing them more deeply like you would if you had a small library. I love slapping in a cartridge, or using different controllers. The look of the console itself becomes part of the gaming experience.
On the other hand, I have all these physical systems and physical games that just take up space (and can cause discussions with people you might live with about storage) and cost money. Some things also are fragile, some haven't been used in a long time. I really like playing on vintage hardware if I can, but there are systems I don't own and want to learn about and enjoy, like the Apple IIe. Trying to set up an Apple II system would be a big project to try to do, and emulation for it is readily available. Plus emulation has so many advantages like screenshots, video capture, etc that can promote discussions and sharing. Having access to lots of games instead of just a few that happen to be in your physical library gives you a larger scope to learn about the system.