I prefer XFCE for lightweight uses (e.g. VM or raspberry Pi) and KDE for normal desktop use.

For me MATE isn’t quite light enough for lightweight when XFCE is there, and no where near attractive or pleasant enough for day-to-day use when RAM/CPU use isn’t a bottleneck. KDE is certainly more resource intense but up to 1gb of RAM and 1-3% CPU idle for a full featured, slick desktop environment is worth it.

I don’t really see the appeal of MATE unless you strongly want a GNOME 2 desktop. In which case, yes it makes sense. Although ironically you can make a very close but modern take on GNOME 2 with KDE with modern bells and whistles if you’re willing to customise KDE - it’s that flexible.

I do! I switched from KDE 3.5 (whenever that was current). I love KDE’s approach to making everything adjustable (as opposed to Gnome’s “you’ll get one button and you better love it”) but with KDE 4 on the horizon it seemed to bloat too much for my tastes.

I love how it’s a (for me) perfect mix of making a ton of things adjustable while appearing extremely no-frills. Easy on the ram, CPU, and eyes. 👌

I am at the moment, but I’m thinking of switching to XFCE.

I switched to Mate originally because Cinnamon always runs out of memory and starts slowing down over time. If they fixed the memory issues I’d probably prefer Cinnamon.

Dad joke time: Mostly the Aussies!

I do. I’ve been on MATE for 8 or 9 years now. I like GNOME 2 environment a lot, lightweight, still looks nice, has a “classic” PC interface compared to tabletified looking icons. It just works.

I’ve jumped around a lot. Mate is great and a little more lightweight than some others. I definitely prefer Mate over Xfce. Still like KDE by far far the best, but Mate is my second.

using mate on my Raspis, moved to cinnamon on anything more powerful

I’ve been using mate basically forever. Installed it for some people. I like it better than any other.