Yup, Cargo is a good baseline to compare to. I don't get the CMake arguments since:

• xmake isn't trying to replace CMake
• xmake can create CMake files from an xmake project
• xmake can consume CMake files
• xmake can use CMake packages
• you can use xmake packages in a CMake project
• a lot of people quite obviously don't like CMake

It's working with the ecosystem, not against and is good for C++ especially since people are comparing C++ building with tools like Cargo now.