<p>I think that amoeba's answer on "<a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/190148">Building an autoencoder in Tensorflow to surpass PCA</a>" is extremely elegant and insightful; it provides an excellent and coherent example on how an auto-encoder compares to PCA. </p>

<p>To quote another user's comment: "<em>Fantastical! Stupendousness!</em>" - I agree with that assessment.</p>
