Got it on my old “Disto Tester” It’s currently running Spiral Linux because, these days, it’s more for my son to get familiar with Debian. Went ahead and put Plasma on it and am trying to configure the desktop to make it comparable to how I currently use my main computer running Gnome.
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Worth the effort because I understand Plasma is lighter on resources, more configurable, and, supposedly, further along on Wayland support.
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This does NOT mean I’m trying to duplicate Gnome on Plasma, that’s not the point. I’m trying to find how Plasma can implement core functions I like about Gnome. For example, the “Clock Menu” on Gnome connects to all my calendars and integrates nicely with Gnome-Calendar, Gnome-Weather, and Evolution. I use that pretty regularly so I’m trying to set up something that’s “work-alike” to that. After much tinkering and looking stuff up, I can come close. Not quite as good, but not too bad either. Definitely the trickiest thing to configure.
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Other things like my drop-down terminal and making things duck out of the way when I’m not using them were much easier to set up.
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Haven’t set up email yet. I will need to support multiple accounts including Protonmail as well as email aliases. I can do all that on Thunderbird if Kmail isn’t up to the task. If it turns out Kmail can support it, I might just put the entire Kontact suite on and see how it compares to Evolution.
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I am running into difficulties setting up online accounts in Settings and in Dolphin though. This seems to be a known issue.
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If nothing else, Plasma will likely become my “go-to” desktop for older or lower resource computers.
Good luck!
I really don’t think that plasma is further along with Wayland than gnome though…
That’s what I’ve been hearing (freesync specifically), but I guess I don’t really know for sure.
What I’m really curious about is, once I set up comparable functionality, what’s the actual difference in memory useage?
From the DE itself, I suspect for most people it will be less than 100MB. Of course, if you are using a bunch of extensions on gnome that could change memory consumption so it could be more. Likewise, if you start using add-ons like latte-dock that will increase memory usage on the plasma side.
I think the bigger differences will be on the application side. For example, I have no idea how the memory footprint differs for kmail vs evolution.
Kmail, KOrganizer, and whatever their contacts manager is would be what I should compare Evolution. (or just Thunderbird). I do also use the newsreader plugin for Evolution, but only for Arch update notes (That whole “GRUB” thing…how to switch to systemd-boot was not the only thing I learned that day 
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Clearly, Plasma can be set up pretty lightweight. So, it will always be a good option for low-endian and older machines. This is the first time since playing with SuSE years back that I looked at it’s useability as a serious desktop environment.
Ok, experiment is complete, here’s what I’ve found.
Once Plasma is set up comparable to the way my Gnome desktop is setup, the memory footprint is about the same (although, to be fair, I’m not running OpenRGB on my old distro-tester PC).
Kontact seems to a perfectly fine PIM suite and is comparable to Evolution.
Kmail was quite easy to setup Protonmail on, but does appear to be limited to STARTTLS. For that reason, I might consider using Thunderbird and plugins instead of Kontact.
I needed gnome-keyring to get protonmail-bridge to work. This was the recommended solution in the forums I’ve found.
The weather widget I really liked on Plasma is apparently no longer maintained.
Personal preference, I’ll stick with Gnome, but it really does boil down to personal preference. I can get comparable functionality either way with about the same memory footprint.
…and now, I’m going to wipe my disto tester and put a minimalist Plasma install of Spiral Linux on it so my son can use it.
Most Wayland users don’t.
It’s 100% hype, not functionality.
Way to quote out of context there…putz
If you can’t tell which desktop supports Wayland better, and Wayland support is important to you, you shouldn’t be calling others “putz”. 
I’d ask you what benefits you have from Wayland, but we both know I won’t get an concrete answer.
I’m running gnome on wayland, my games work fine…what else is there?
Jeebus, if it really became an issue, I can run gamescope…
…or X11?
Yea, on Gnome I could. I understand that won’t be an option on Plasma in the near future.