I've got a fresh install of Skyrim I want to mod but I had problems before with NMM and seemed I ended up having to use Wrye Bash with NMM in the end.

That knowledge aside I was curious what opinions the community has on using either. I'd prefer to have just one mod manager. Please comment if you would.

Also note: I have used Steam Workshop and refuse to ever again.

Bash allows for more fine-grained control over the installation process and presents you with more information and allows you to modify the installation order of packages at will. NMM just sort of dumps everything in the "Data" directory and hopes for the best.

I use both

I've also been checking out Skyrim Mod Organizer. It looks pretty interesting. I like the mod isolation but wonder how well that works. Especially with how many scripts are compiled (or conflict) with just the vanilla game alone. Anyone try out SMO?

I wouldn't recommend it. I believe that with the way it handles things, it will end up taking more space than the way Bash does. I could be mistaken, though, but that's what I've been able to gather. Bash overwrites the files and I believe MO redirects to a file. You get a similar result, though.

NMM to track and download, Wrye Bash to install.

I use NMM to organize load order. Manual installing is the best thing you can do. Use Wrye Bash instead if you need any of its features. Wrye Bash may be better overall though, since NMM has, multiple times, screwed up my load order by randomly placing certain plugins in random places.

Manually installing a lot of mods is generally not feasible. You need to keep track of each individual file, what order you overwrote them, replace them when you want to remove a mod, and so forth. It's a real pain in the ass even if you are organized.

For the average Joe, BOSS does a fine job of taking care of the load order.

Completely feasible. I have over 200 mods, and I am in complete control of every one. When a mod overwrites another one, I simply create a folder with a note saying if I overwrote the files or kept them from the other mod, so I know which files to remove if I uninstall.

It's not practical, I used the wrong term. You need to go through a bunch of nested folders and manually pick out single files to delete. It is not practical with a bunch of mods that use loose files. And when you have script mods installed, one wrong move can and will nuke your game.

Maybe I'm just lucky, I only have three mods that interfere with each other, all of which I only need to keep two or three backup files in a folder. It's not like I'll be uninstalling any of the three mods anyway, I'd consider them essential. I did, however, install a different version of one of the mods (lower-res version). It was real easy. I opened my backup files, located the files that interfered with the other mod, and simply removed them from my new installation and plopped them down in the data files. Easy. I think it's practical, although I admit it can get confusing.

It's not practical. When you're dealing with thousands of files, some of which overlap, it's not practical to ask someone to keep track of each and every file and which file belongs to which archive. You also need to check the CRC for each one to see where it came from.

Oh, files belong to which archive? Simply keep a backup of all archives you download. If you see you want to uninstall a mod, just open the archive and look for all of the files in your data folder. You don't need to check the CRC if you kept that one backup folder I mentioned. If you still don't understand, an example for a folder I have is "meshes - on SMIM uninstall, don't delete, from WATER" which means if I ever uninstall SMIM, then I shouldn't delete the files in the folder, since they're from WATER. I only have two folders, and tens of thousands of files. Like I said, maybe I'm just lucky for not having overlapping files.

I haven't installed manually since the days of Oblivion. I would probably again if I had the time I just simply don't, unfortunately.

I do agree however that these days having a mod manager is just overall much less stressful.

Again: in the case of overlaps, you need to check the specific file. The CRC checking is for when someone gets lost and confused about which order they deleted the thousands of files.

It's too easy to get lost. The more things there increases the chance of someone losing track of what they're doing and then you get kaboom. A kaboom is bad. It's best to avoid kabooms.

Manually installing has become much easier since Oblivion, since bsa files actually work now and people actually use them (Unofficial Oblivion Patch was such a mess). But I do agree it's probably less stressful at times.

Personally I swear by Wrye Bash... Have used it since Morrowind.

What I actually do though is a little different than most modders. I used to use Wrye's build-in system for managing .rar-based mod installs. Basically you compress all the mod files into a .rar, and Wrye will let you install/remove it in a simple click, and even tracks conflicts.

Now however, I have taken to using the Archive utility the game ships with to compress a mod's data files into a BSA with the name of the main plugin .ESP. (I put all the folders in a main folder called Data, add that folder in Archive, check all, and select the options for which types of data the mod contains, then tell it to compress.)

So, my data folder is basically empty (of additional folders) in spite of having quite a few mods installed. I haven't been able to see a performance different compared to loose files, but it definitely cuts down on drive thrashing.