MATE
Fewer than 5 people recommend it so far, so there's no written verdict. Here is what commenters said.
3recommend
0warn against
Jan 2, 2026first mention
Sep 24, 2026latest mention
Why people recommend it
“I've decided to be frozen in time with MATE (basically gnome 2).”
“New Desktop is FreeBSD+MATE.”
Show 1 more
“Gnome's "we know better than you" attitude is why I switched to Mate years ago.”
Caveats and dissent
No one in these comments warned against it.
Often compared with
Who recommends it in their own words
Threads where it came up
Data: mate.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 5
“I've decided to be frozen in time with MATE (basically gnome 2).”
“New Desktop is FreeBSD+MATE.”
“I remember mate being ever so slightly unstable (not sure if it was HW compatibility issues).”
“Gnome's "we know better than you" attitude is why I switched to Mate years ago.”
“I had to switch to Mate and then spend another 20 minutes trying to get it look ok.”