> QMake is old but functional, CMake is more up to date but a total pain if you use it irregularly. In my experience it's the exact opposite. Cmake can be a re

> QMake is old but functional, CMake is more up to date but a total pain if you use it irregularly. In my experience it's the exact opposite. Cmake can be a real treat to use, provided you follow the so-called modern cmake approach, and qmake is just an unmaintainable mess of a system. > I've never used Conan so I can't comment on it. Conan is pretty much orthogonal to any build system. Conan's responsibility is pretty much limited to managing the project's third-party libraries: it handles downloading their interfaces and libraries, pass their settings, and just integrate them into your project with as little code as possible. There is indeed some modules for CMake that offer some limited functionality that allows third-party packages to be integrated, such as the ExternalProject module. However, those were an afterthought that only add complexity to a project.