Out of the ones you list CMake is the only one I've authored and maintained and I still end up having to understand and troubleshoot Makefiles. Depending on the

Out of the ones you list CMake is the only one I've authored and maintained and I still end up having to understand and troubleshoot Makefiles. Depending on the size of the project and the needs I try and use the fewest number of abstractions since I end up jumping down to troubleshoot anyway. For toy stuff I'll just compile on the commandline (maybe write a bash script). I'll write a Makefile if I need to start wrangling too many things. CMake usually comes in if I need to go cross-platform or incorporate another build system or dependency that needs it. I think most places probably need CMake, but quite a few don't. If Make, as is, works then it makes sense to come up with opinions and standards that streamline authoring and maintenance.