The Autotools do have dependencies: they require a functional Unix platform to run, including a shell and a fair number of common command-line tools. This is t

The Autotools do have dependencies: they require a functional Unix platform to run, including a shell and a fair number of common command-line tools. This is the number one reason people use CMake. It's a single binary that runs on every platform with no external dependencies, notably including Microsoft Windows. This makes it much more portable. CMake is itself a shell.