When comparing Pantheon vs TDE (Trinity), the Slant community recommends TDE (Trinity) for most people. In the question“What are the best UNIX-like Desktop Environments for everyday users?” TDE (Trinity) is ranked 12th while Pantheon is ranked 18th. The most important reason people chose TDE (Trinity) is:
Trinity is every customizable, almost every aspect of the GUI can be changed to look like you want. Need a button in the toolbar? You can add it. You want a specialized toolbar in a certain part of the screen? You can add it. You can configure the GUI in the setup before the first run too.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Simple, clean aesthetic
Nonintrusive and easy to overview workspace.
Pro Lightweight
Pantheon is light on system resources, giving it the advantage of being able run well on a multitude of setups.
Pro Looks amazing
Looks absolutely amazing. Very nice to use. Amazing UX.
Pro Smooth, subtle animations
Nearly everything is animated, but it's not over the top.
Pro Splitting and animations
Switching between workspaces is fluid, pulling up the workspace preview bumps up the rest of the desktop, open windows show up on the switcher along with larger icons, and everything is subtly animated. You have two windows taking each half the screen by dragging to corners.
Pro Highly modular
While built to be integrated, Pantheon is also highly modular. Shell components like the Panel, Dock, and app launcher can be swapped out with limited repercussions.
Pro Great for minimalists
Although you cannot put icons on desktop, it comes with very low number of pre-installed softwares.
Pro Perfect for chromebook
It's light and easy.
Pro Slick, smooth desktop environment
Easy to use and easy to configure, there is almost nothing that the developers did not think of to creat a top-notch user experience.
Pro Highly configurable
Trinity is every customizable, almost every aspect of the GUI can be changed to look like you want. Need a button in the toolbar? You can add it. You want a specialized toolbar in a certain part of the screen? You can add it.
You can configure the GUI in the setup before the first run too.
Pro Low resource usage
Pro Traditional desktop experience
As a fork of KDE 3.5 Trinity is designed for Unix-like operating systems, intended for computer users preferring a traditional desktop model.
Pro Stable system that does not change everything every 6 months just for the sake of it
Pro Works fine on old computers
It is very responsive in 7+ years old computers.
Pro Looks like Windows XP
Pro Many themes by default
including themes that look like Windows 95 and Windows XP
Pro Looks old
Pro For conservative users
Cons
Con Poor reputation among Linux users
The whole Elementary OS project has a poor reputation among Linux users.
Con No icons on desktop
Con Too simple
Good for people who want a plug and play simple Desktop Environment. But for a multitasking / entertainment / cutting edge or Gaming Rig this is not the answer.
Con Requires tweaks to be usable
To enable things like the minimize button, status bar indicators, and what some might call "normal" desktop features, you need to tweak the system to make it usable.
Con Uses GTK
Nowadays, GTK is designed with GNOME, and only GNOME, in mind. Non-GNOME applications which attempt to utilize it suffer as a result. Pantheon is no exception.
Con Few configuration options
It is pretty bare-bones on a stock install, but further configuration options can be added through various official tweak tools.
Con Buggy
Con Not ideal for enterprise environments
As it has no set release date, and no set support and/or EOL dates, that makes it a not so good choice for enterprises managing a number of machines where such dates are important to know before hand.
Con Slow maintenance
Any significant updates come with new release, which usually takes 2-3 years. Hence gets obsolete with current software.
Con Not available for major Linux distributions
Con Limited to eOS-only
It means Pantheon won't work properly if installed on other distros. Manjaro has given up on trying since it works better on a LTS system and takes an eternity to realease a new version or add security updates. On Arch, Pantheon also doesn't work properly. People are trying it on Fedora, not sure how it works now. If you want to use Pantheon, better get to eOS.
Con Looks and feels like a Mac
Which may turn quite a few people off with the aesthetics, of course for some people, this is a pro.
Con Slow development
Two years from one patch release to another and instead of fixing bugs it adds new ones.
Con Huge and obsolete codebase
Trinity is based in Qt 3, which is unmaintained by upstream. The KDE 3 codebase is also unmaintained. As new technologies like Systemd become a new standard the lack of developers make Trinity more incompatible and error/bug/security risk prone.
Con Ugly UX
Con Missing many modern features
Con Not supported on most Linux distros
Con Settings
Every now and then you might have to reset something. I had this happen a few times with the mouse setting for single click.
Con Looks old
The desktop and everything looks outdated and very similar to Windows 2000.