I like the dashboard on HA better than HE.. even the smartly dashboard, while nice just is not as smooth as HA... I might be running HA just to pull in HE, and an hand for of things that just dont integrate into a single dashboard that will be a cleaner look.
That's precisely how I started with Home Assistant, to serve as a frontend to my existing home automation software (Premise).
I started with Home Remote and had it communicating with Premise via MQTT. Then I tried openHAB and (at the time) I found it was easier to develop and maintain a UI. Lastly, I tried Home Assistant and found its Lovelace UI to be even easier to create the UI behavior I wanted.
I still use both systems, Premise and Home Assistant, to automate my home. Over time, I have adopted functionality available in Home Assistant (that's unavailable in the long-discontinued Premise software). I can probably shift more services from Premise to Home Assistant but they work fine as-is so why break what works.
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I don't see that mentioned very often. Mostly over at cocoon tech these days.
yeah unfortunately I likely will end up with 3 or 4 systems, wanting to integrate into a single dashboard, lol.
First and main will be HE, but like you said the lovelace ui is smoother and I think easier for my wife and kids to use than the HE dashboards... I keep trying them but haven't gotten anything that's great.. although they do use voice for most things, but need a backup in case we loose internet...
then the RV we are buying has an automation system built into it, which uses Open HAB on the back end... and then theres 3 or 4 bluetooth monitoring devices that have a single hub/display...
my hope is to bring everything via mqtt into HA and use that as my main display/control point.... well that's the goal..... how it works out is yet to be seen, as I dont have the RV or the bluetooth side to start playing with them yet... lol.
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Yup, you have to have been a home automation hobbyist over a decade ago to have caught wind of the name "Premise Home Control".
It was discontinued by Motorola and made freely available to the public around 2007. The original forum moved to Yahoo Groups and then I convinced the user-base to move yet again to the (at the time) far more frequented Cocoontech forum (still the home of some very experienced home automation users and systems integrators).
The Premise forum still exists but I can count on one hand how many users I know still use it (and you don't need a full complement of fingers)
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Probably about the same still running Stargate? 
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Yes I was. The name mix-up doesn't change my view that Home Assistant isn't something for an average user. Even those that enjoy the fast pace today, will tire of the constant wholesale changes.
I have been a full time Linux user since 1993. It was a tough slug back then. Today it is about as simple as it gets. An install takes 5 to 10 minutes. It is smooth and has lots of familiar looking features. Desktop Linux still doesn't work for most people. You still need to understand some things and people don't really want to learn that much to run a computer.
Even though HA is much much easier to install and set up than it was for me 6 years ago, I think that the constant background changes will keep it from being an everyday platform for any but the most adventurous. Just wait until you have a couple of tiny home emergencies, you get behind on a work project, your kids desperately need some attention, the car won't start and your wife says "the lights keep going on and off in the baby's room".
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I am really self-conscious about my fingers. I don't think it is appropriate to point out someone's shortcomings. 
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I'm going to make an evidence-free guess and say that there are probably more people still using that than Premise.
When hardware continues to reliably serve its original purpose, one is less likely to tear it out and start all over again. Plus if it plays well with other things, you just leverage its functionality. For example, I continue to use an ELK M1 system that I installed ten years ago. The thing "just works". I access it from a driver I wrote for Premise and, via MQTT, Home Assistant uses it as well (although there is a native integration for it but I prefer to use the one I wrote).
But I could be completely wrong about Stargate's user-base.
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You're not wrong.
Although I am a fan of Home Assistant, I am not a fanboi who believes it's fit for everyone's needs. I keep reminding people that they are participating in the development of home automation software that is (seemingly forever) in beta. That alone should make prospective users pause and consider "Is that what I want to do?"
With a 3-week upgrade cycle, frequently with breaking changes, it's always evolving (usually for the better) but the process takes its toll on anyone who doesn't have the time (or patience) to deal with breaking changes. Like you said, if you're adventurous you're going to enjoy the ride. As long as by "adventurous" you understand that the next upgrade might indeed become a true adventure.
To be fair, I've gone through a few recent upgrades that have been largely uneventful; clean, trouble-free upgrades with no major bugs (not bug-free, just free of showstoppers). However, knowing the lay of the land, I would not hold that up as an example of the normal state of affairs. Some integrations are going through massive re-designs and it's definitely a bumpy ride for those users.
NOTE
It's often been suggested that one way to avoid the pain and suffering of breaking changes is to run a version that does everything you need well and then don't upgrade. That strategy can work, at least until you decide to use an integration that happens to be buggy in your version but was fixed later.
Now you have to upgrade and, depending how long you haven't upgraded, you will be jumping to a significantly different product. Frankly, it may be easier to re-install it from scratch than suffer through the upgrade process and take into consideration all the breaking changes that have occurred since your old version.
Funnily enough, for Home Assistant users who have carped about "too many upgrades" I have often suggested they switch to something else ("Why suffer?"). For example, openHAB gets about one major release a year and that's about all the adventure some people want.
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Probably. The stargate hardware was pretty solid and once setup just keeps running. I know of a few users still running stargate with homeseer. I see premise pop up from time to time but not often which is why it caught my attention
I've finally ditched my HA install 
We should have this conversation two or three years from now. I do still appreciate the power and flexibility of HA. The race ahead to implement new features can be a thrill and I can't think of anything that is as flexible or powerful. The problem from my perspective, is that after some of those meteoric climbs, the platform plumbing needs a massive over hall and the foundation needs patching. Those things will weigh on your time. Put it down in your calendar to have this chat in the future.
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Lots of Stagate's still running, I retired my Stargate over 2 years ago and I am sure if there was still support for RS485 and X10 networking in the home automation market it would still be running today.
Well X10 is still around but is mostly dead. RS485 is actually still quite alive same with RS232. Lots of gear still supports it and it's always better to wire if possible.
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I feel a person not looking to spend 30 hours without their stuff working, get both. A pi 4 and download the full hassio with supervisor etc. hubitat with the add on in h.a. And the node red add on. It’s really a 30 min process if you already have a hubitat. Where it gets super complicated is if you decide to get fancy (I Did). Running h.a core in docker creates “problems” if you don’t really know what your doing. Turns a 20min project into 3-4 hours. Ssh then samba, then those are read only...was a huge pia for me. Then trying to install hacs is weird without the script. Then making another docker for node red, then manually configuring it.
If you can spare $50, buy a pi 4, load the full hassio and node red add on and you won’t regret it
I have installed HA on an old NUC (in Docker, not disk image), and actually the installation was easy, but I am struggling with the Hubitat integration - or more precisely installing HACS in order to install the hubitat integration. Instructions relating to HA tend to be less complete and up to date than those for Hubitat, which in turn are less complete and up to date than those for Smart Things - though just my experience, ymmv.
