I build a lot of cmake and meson projects. I was an expert at cmake for quite some time (bleh), but now I use meson for everything I can.
The end user experience is in every aspect superior to autotools. There is a small downside for cmake compared to autotools: while you have to install the bits for autotools it runs on a shell. There is a bigger downside for meson: you need a minimal python infrastructure up and working. Over time you need that python infrastructure to keep working. Sometimes it doesn't.
I still vastly prefer meson over cmake and much more so autotools. If I have to fix cmake or meson builds, well, really, if you know their languages, it's just no comparison to debugging the 1000s of lines of shell code autotools generates.
The end user experience is in every aspect superior to autotools. There is a small downside for cmake compared to autotools: while you have to install the bits for autotools it runs on a shell. There is a bigger downside for meson: you need a minimal python infrastructure up and working. Over time you need that python infrastructure to keep working. Sometimes it doesn't.
I still vastly prefer meson over cmake and much more so autotools. If I have to fix cmake or meson builds, well, really, if you know their languages, it's just no comparison to debugging the 1000s of lines of shell code autotools generates.