Just been doing a load of testing with a few different Astro rpi images and automatic scripts that are available, just to see a comparison the SM...

And I have to say that nothing is as good in my opinion, I tried a few auto scripts that run after you install Ubuntu mate, and a couple of full images, such as Astroberry, which I might add came a close second

The only issue with AB was I could not get the WiFi to connect to my home network, it just does not have the same connection settings as SM, which I found strange as both based on Ubuntu mate, but it would not connect, and was not easy to find and configure WiFi connections...apart from that excellent...

As for the scripts, well I am not a Linux coder at all, and so found them awkward and the instructions were not explaining things clearly enough for someone like me, so things did not work after install, and were always requiring user input and setting changes...

So for me SM is the one I will be sticking with for the foreseeable....it just works straight out of the gate..no messing no fuss...