When comparing LXQT vs Gnome, the Slant community recommends Gnome for most people. In the question“What are the best desktop environments for Arch Linux?” Gnome is ranked 17th while LXQT is ranked 18th. The most important reason people chose Gnome is:
GNOME 3 has been designed to make it simple and easy to use. Press a button to view your open windows, launch applications or check if you have new messages.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Modular
By taking advantage of the modular KDE Frameworks, LXQT is able to offer a modular architecture that allows the user to easily swap components.
Pro Lightweight emphasis
With a focus on being "light-weight", it is to KDE Plasma what XFCE is to GNOME: a familiar enough looking lighter alternative to the more fully featured environment that may work better on lower-end devices and for people who want as lean a system as possible.
Pro Beautiful GUI using Qt.
Pro Great for old and low-end devices
LXQt is unparalleled in its ability to run on the weakest of machines without a problem.
Pro Utilizes Qt
As the name suggests, LXQt takes advantage of the Qt ecosystem to provide a beautiful and performant user experience.
Pro Doesn't use GTK3
Pro Doesn't use GTK3
Pro Easy to use
GNOME 3 has been designed to make it simple and easy to use. Press a button to view your open windows, launch applications or check if you have new messages.
Pro Very productive
With a clean layout and well-thought keyboard shortcuts, Gnome 3 is simply the best for people looking to be productive with their computer.
Pro Online account management
GNOME 3 integrates with your online accounts, so that all your data can be accessed from the same place.
Pro Adheres to standards
Allowing for interoperability and shared technology for X Window System desktops.
Pro Does not get in the way
GNOME 3 lets you do the things you want without getting in the way. It won't bother you or badger you with demands, and it has been designed to help you comfortably deal with notifications.
Pro Great for high dpi displays
Adjustable scaling factor makes it great for high resolution laptops and far away TVs.
Pro Powerful search
A powerful search feature lets you access all your work from one place.
Pro Fallback mode offers a classic look
For people looking for older, more classic looks, Fallback mode offers just that. Ubuntu users can have this option by installing a package called "GNOME-Session-Fallback." In the future to be released GNOME 3.8, the Fallback Mode will not be included, so this is really not a long-term solution.
Pro Easy theming
Changing the look (and feel) of Gnome Shell is easy, shell theme, icon, windows and graphical elements (gtk). individually for each user. Mostly its installing some packages or unpacking some archive to a themes folder and using selecting the new theme in e.g. gnome-tweak-tool. There a lot of really good theme on deviantart.
Pro Customizable with easy-to-install extensions
With the right plugin enabled in your browser (comes with Firefox by default) you can browse and install with two clicks the many Shell Extensions available from http://extensions.gnome.org. These are listed automatically based upon the version of Gnome Shell you currently have installed.
Pro Touchscreen friendly
It works well with any touchscreen-enabled system, including newer laptops, even to the point of including a well-designed on-screen keyboard.
Pro Keyboard friendly
It's (mostly) usable without touching a mouse, so you can keep your hands on the keyboard. Shortcuts can be defined in the gnome setting. There are even more shortcuts available when using the gesetting or dconf tool, e.g. switch to desktop 5 to 9.
Cons
Con Poor file manager
pcmanfm-qt is lightyears behind its GTK version.
Con Very limited in customization
Very few themes available, especially modern themes.
Con Ugly
Con Multiple application sources
Which leads to an inconsistent desktop.
Con Not a full desktop environment
Like LXDE or Xfce it is not a full desktop envirnment and is missing many utilities that need to be borrowed from other desktops which will bloat the desktop.
Con UHD screens hardly supported
DPI settings are not adopted. The readability, usability of this DE on UHD screens is not advisable. Fonts are not scaled at all.
Con Unthemeable for usual users
As all Qt desktop environments themeing is hard since you need to know C++ , there is a sideway using qss however its not as powerful as GTK, Enlightenment or Windows theming.
Con Depends too much on KDE
Even the programs/apps shipped with LXQt are from the KDE project. They don't have their own projects yet.
It's pretty similar to Budgie that depends on Gnome for almost everything.
Con Pcmanfm-qt needs gvfs
you can mount drives with mount, but pcmanfm uses gnomes gvfs to mount drives.
Con Missing Features = Lightweight
For the LXQT developers, lightweight is a synonym for missing features.
Con A lot of bugs
This is a very disappointing desktop environment, it's very buggy. Although there still is hope that these issues will be resolved.
Con Not quite ready for open deployment
In the current state, LXQT is a beta desktop that feels like a heavy alpha. A lot of the tools and underlying features are in a testing state, while the LXQT project itself has not had a gold (1.0.0) release as of yet.
Con No taskbar by default
GNOME doesn't have a taskbar by default, and might be confusing to people migrating from Windows for that reason. It is however possible to install it through http://extensions.gnome.org.
Con Some areas are unpolished and lack features
Some aspects are still unpolished and lack features - the gnome design team works well, but seems to not be taking input from the outside world.
Con Extension system is basically unsupported
Backward compatibility is not guaranteed and extensions seems like second class citizens in the GNOME environment.
Con It tries to reinvent the wheel
It isn't a traditional interface. Very different to adjust to.