Yeah, it's kinda sad, because I really like Mate, but it does feel like it's too much of a jack of all trades. It's like Mate is always good, but there's always a better option. Plus it seems like every update takes longer than the previous one. I'm starting to worry about it's future.
Same for me. I liked Cinnamon on Mint, but that's also a long long time in the past. KDE made big strides over the years. Anything but Gnome though. I can't state how much I hate it for how gutted it is of basic functionality. I think the only thing I liked were the snappy animations and the black task bar. XFCE is nice for really low powered machines though.
Not sure memes are the way to ask for support but if you're actually half serious about the question: Go with Cinnamon, especially if you come from Windows. XFCE might also be a choice if your system is very very old / low powered.
Over the years XFCE is the DE I've used the most. Kept getting back to it. It simply does a lot of things right. That does not mean it's my favorite, though. There are plenty of good ones out there. LXqt is one I find to be excellent, but it does not get much attention. Enlightenment too, for that matter. Enlightenment feels like it comes from a different era, but it's quite charming. That said, I think I'm finished with these "small" environments, and will be on KDE from now on. You get the "batteries included" experience, and things generally work very well together. Sure, maybe it's a bit more resource heavy, but I can't say I notice.
Mint and cinnamon is the way. But something happened and i was having issues. An unrelated issue caused me to need a reinstall so i tried mate.
It works fine but dragging windows around to corners or sides, i have to grab many times to get it done. The windows lag when they are being moved.
Thought I'd resurrect this old comment to say it wasn't the fault of any DE. It was my wireless Logitech mouse. Left clicker went bad. Replaced mouse and os super responsive again