I’d never used either KDE nor Gnome, only the evolution of Gnome2, Mate and the retroengineered Gnome3, Cinnamon.
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I actually liked that before unity happened, then I went on DE after DE. Mate is nice, I like manjaro’s implementation. Out of the box on arch it seems too barebone (outdated look) for me, wouldnt know how to rice it up.
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The more boring and barebones the better! I want my desktop to get outta the way and disappear out of my sight. From the standard Mate I …
- delete the second panel
- pull the panel down
- pull all my often used softwares and apps into the panel and start all from there. No need for any Apple-like thingamajigs
- have the panel show all opened programs and apps
- reduce panel to 15p and all icons on screen to 33% size
- delete all wallpapers and replace them with my own
That’s basically all I do.
Screenshot is of Cinnamon but looks basically the same as my Mate screen always looked:
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Since I find neither Gnome nor KDE interesting I am already doing that. Some time ago it was XFCE and now I am happy with i3-gaps (with some XFCE features added).
I am starting to feel like an old fart (despite my age 
) because this “modern” design that is pushed to Gnome and KDE is something that I just do not want on my computer. 
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But Unity is based on Gnome3, like Cinnamon. Crappy concept tho. Fortunately I never ever, not even for 10 minutes used Ubuntu. My first contact with Linux was searching for Linux, 5 minutes later I knew that Ubuntu was the big thing but Mint was Ubuntu with racing stripes and pixie dust and much better. And 2 weeks later my Linux guruji had convinced me to install Manjaro with Mate.
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That was a wise decision. And now EOS with mate? Even better if you like more vanilla
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Noooo! As mentioned and shown in screenshot I’m finally on Cinnamon. Also, after some years, back on Manjaro since my machine - after hardware upgrade - has developed an allergy to EOS. 
I agree with @Brtza gtk or qt makes little difference these days as you end up with both frameworks installed at some point anyway.
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Perhaps, except for scaling as I mentioned as not all global settings will scale text and icons in both gtk and qt apps, which is a bit of a downside of using high dpi screens and a pain. And then it depends on the DE which settings scale what. There are tricks to modify the config/.Resources config and make life easier.
Got it! Have a low attention span on weekends 
Thats a nice combo too!
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I stay with Plasma, second choice would be XFCE : - )
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If not gnome then KDE, if neither maybe XFCE or just back to windows so applying color profiles isn’t painful
I can’t imagine living without KDE. 
It would be a really tough call for me, split down the middle on my alternate options.
I would like to continue using QT apps, so LXQt, is my only logical option, but theming (love me a eye-popping visual display) is rather lacking. I would grumble, then hiss and spit, and possible use the only GTK desktop environment I find worthy, which is Budgie. Either one of those, probably in a coin toss.
BTW, has anyone used the DE; UKUI, and any thoughts about it? It uses both GTK and QT, just curious. 
Edit to add: UKUI went through some changes recently, seems to be mostly built on QT now and visually updated. Looks nice. I am going to have to check this one out.
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I used Gnome for many years professionally, and have since grown enamored of more lightweight DEs that are more responsive, and less complicated to use and configure. Xfce is one of the better ones, in that it supports more complete terminal configuration. Other choices like Budgie and Mate have limitations in this area. But then, I am a heavy terminal user who cares about such things. Newer choices are all missing useful features at this point, but may mature into good alternatives.
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That is the thing… I also use qtile and i3wm, I love wm.
However, I was positively surprised how snappy gnome 40 is with zero glitches in two weeks. I try gnome every 3-4 months but always return to kde or xfce after a couple of days because something is freezing or some odd behavior. This time none! I hope it stays that way, its great for my work computer.
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same here : - )
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That’s exactly how it is with me. Over the last few years, I’ve become obsessed with KDE. In between I tried Xfce from time to time and kept it in mind as plan B. However, several attempts with GNOME have shown me that we cannot become friends. It’s not so much the concept of GNOME, which I actually like, but the fact that GNOME takes away all my freedoms. It’s a paternalism on the part of the developers that reminds me a lot of Windows and Mac. Xfce is a pleasant middle ground.
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totally agree 
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I don’t feel that way, but completely understand that statement, especially if you compare to other desktops that allow more customization. I also like kde but I never customize much except the icon and the taskbar, thats about it for me. In gnome I don’t even use extensions.
The only customization that saved my day is adding custom keybindings, actually using the same than i3wm to open firefox, terminal etc.
I last tried GNOME again 3 weeks ago (I was bored). The experience was shauderful for me when I wanted to set basic things after installation that I have been used to for years. Among other things, my monitor requires a dpi of 117 px due to its resolution: doesn’t work - improve font rendering: doesn’t work - look for extensions for it: didn’t want to, since you can’t rely on their continuation anyway. Fortunately KDE runs much more stable on Arch / EOS than on Manjaro, where I used it lately, so: Plasma ftw 
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