I installed Debian 12 (Bookworm) on my machine last year and the desktop environment I chose during the installation was Gnome.

Coming from Windows, I was really frustrated about the lack of desktop icons in Gnome. Not only that but if I wanted to change something about my desktop, I had to go and install plugins and stuff.

So after using Gnome for a few months, I decided to switch KDE Plasma. (This is one of great things about using GNU/Linux, if you don't like something there is always another option)

Yes, I had heard a lot about how customizable, configurable and Plasma is. After scrolling through the settings and using the desktop environment for a while, I felt overwhelmed by all things I could customize. There were so many options.

I changed the loading animation, cursors and installed a new theme. One of my favorite things about KDE Plasma was the Dolphin file manager. It was just straight up better and more advanced than Nautilus.

A few months later, I switched back to Gnome and after using it again for a while, I started to love it. Now, I really don't use Plasma.

Even though you could configure everything in Plasma, I only changed a few of the settings. After using Plasma, I realized that I just don't care that much about customization. All I want is a stable and reliable desktop environment that just works.

KDE Plasma is stable and works really well.

But Gnome has a highly polished, visually pleasing minimal look. The design of Gnome is just awesome.Plus Gnome is stable, fast and just works.

Both Plasma and Gnome have their strong points. There are some things that Gnome just straight up does better than KDE. But Gnome does have problems that Plasma just doesn't have.

It all depends on you to chose which one of them you want to use. (There are also plenty of other options like Cinnamon, XFCE, Ubuntu Budgie,etc. which I haven't mentioned)