When comparing Pantheon vs Deepin DE, the Slant community recommends Deepin DE for most people. In the question“What are the best UNIX-like desktop environments for developers?” Deepin DE is ranked 7th while Pantheon is ranked 10th. The most important reason people chose Deepin DE is:
Deepin DE has some blur designs which make it very beautiful.
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 Very beautiful
Deepin DE has some blur designs which make it very beautiful.
Pro Easy to use
Deepin DE is very simple.
Pro Stable
Pro Includes quality programs
It has some of it's own programs which are quite beautiful.
Pro A modern de for Linux
Deepin is the first DE for Linux which looks and acts like a modern environment. Basically, Deepin succede where Gnome 3 failed
Pro Quite lightweight
Deepin 15.7 has been optimized and now uses less than half the system resources of prior editions.
Pro Has a Windows-like and Mac-like interface
Easily switchable between the two, as well!
Pro Available for a lot of distros
Deepin DE is currently supported on Deepin OS, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Arch Linux, Gentoo, Fedora, Sparky Linux, Puppy Linux, Pardus, Antergos and Manjaro.
Pro Touchscreen-friendly
Pro Option to turn off mouse acceleration in the settings
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 Not very customizable
Con Bling Bling instead of features
Con Great DE, horrible distro
The Deepin linux distro offers its own empty package manager, and has lots of bugs. The DE and core apps are great though.
Con Buggy
Many features do not immediately work.
Con Not installable on Ubuntu/Debian
[UPDATE: Check out UbuntuDDE, a project trying to get DDE on Ubuntu and usable to normies like you]
At least, not easily, and not without potential problems. If you Want Deepin DE, use Deepin Linux, or grab Manjaro's DDE spin, or install manually on Arch Linux. Antergos, ArchLabs or similar.
Con Poor translations
Con Goes contrary to the concept of customizability
If you want non-configurability, go back to windows or mac. This is a step back for Linux.