I would love for this to be true, but I'm afraid I don't have any evidence that it is. What are the better options you'd recommend? More specifically, Google's

I would love for this to be true, but I'm afraid I don't have any evidence that it is. What are the better options you'd recommend? More specifically, Google's Bazel [0] is the most serious attempt I know of to replace CMake/autotools, but it only just began to support Windows [1] and requires the JDK. Say what you will about CMake, but it's a quick-and-easy MSI to install on Windows and has supported Windows for probably longer than I've been alive. Google's other open source build system, GYP [1a], supports Windows because it builds Chromium, but GYP might as well be undocumented. Unless you like spelunking into the Chromium source, GYP is a non-starter. (Props to the Node folks for actually doing this for Node and Node extensions.) I haven't used Gradle [2], but I've heard more than a few times it's slow (warning: might be FUD)... and it also requires a JRE. Ninja [3] is blazing fast, but it's specifically designed not to be used directly, but rather through a build system generator like CMake. I'll be the first person to ditch CMake if a feasible alternative presents itself, but if you want to build a cross-platform, moderately-complicated C++ project today, especially one with dependencies on other libraries that use arbitrary build systems, I don't know of any such alternative. [0]: https://bazel.build https://bazel.build [0a]: https://gyp.gsrc.io https://gyp.gsrc.io [1]: https://docs.bazel.build/versions/master/windows.html https://docs.bazel.build/versions/master/windows.html [2]: https://gradle.org https://gradle.org [3]: https://ninja-build.org https://ninja-build.org