[OnePlus 5T  Guides, News, & Discussion] DoR3M3:
Best many times is subjective to the needs of the individual, of course there are times when something is truly better than another. There is no best rom, there are only different roms.

Your analogy isn't completly correct, people port roms for many reasons, which pretty much spins around the idea of customization. But don't think this also means Gapps free, because the majority of roms out there are still using GSF with the option to install Gapps, or what you choose but the GSF(Google Services Framework) is still there.

Of course OnePlus has analytics/datamining apps, but the truth is, are they using it wrongly. It's true as bud7dha mentioned, no OS is perfect, but the fact is, when you use a manufacturer's rom, they are going to have their own proprietary firmware to support their hardware, and this is the biggest problem with 3rd party roms, having to support this hardware. So depending on the manufacturer's rom, it's one of the biggest things you have to consider, how well of a job at supporting this hardware are 3rd party custom roms doing, or how bad is the hacking going on, lacking the support, you have to ask yourself.

You want to talk analytics/datamining Google is a bigger contributor to this problem than OnePlus wil ever be, so when you have concern as you mentioned over OnePlus in this situation, you should also have greater concern about what Google is doing, and just because you put in a custom rom, as I mentioned, they are all going to have GSF baked in, Google is still going to be collecting from you in your custom rom.

So in reality, if you are really concerned, then you only want a custom rom free of Google as a microG rom.

In the end, which offers what you want, but supports the hardware better, is the real question, and how free from Google do you want to be.

It might be true that the process of just simply flashing and installing a rom has less going on than going through the process of a Stock OEM rom and making it custom, but at the same time, any rom you install is not just ready to go, you still have to set them up, and possibly install more 3rd party apps, etc... So any rom, no matter what rom, you still are going to spend time setting it up and dealing with it. Now taken into account with what I've said, the risk of a lack of hardware support on a custom rom is going to be greater then the manufacturer, so anytime you install some custom rom, with whatever amount of work you go through, at some point, you might run up against this, and for whatever amount of time you spend, it could be wasted, so we can't just say the simple flash is always the better alternative with a custom rom.

The best guarantee is the manufacturer's rom, unless they mess it up, and that does happen from time to time.

Here's the deal, with experience, and I'm not saying you don't have it, but with experience that microG guide is easy, and only takes 30 minutes, then add to that some setting up and tweaking, around one hour to an hour and a half, when you know the amount of time this takes and I do, you'll realize between this and a so called custom rom, there's not a lot of difference going on.

Here's one fact I forgot to mention, which is something not often talked of, personally I've never seen it around here, and that is the amount of R&D and money a professional manufacturer puts into making a rom, compared to 3rd party developers, which also begs the question, who does a better job of making sure we have the better/secure rom.

The truth is, it can be a real guessing game at times, wondering who is doing the better job at providing us the safest/secure roms.

Custom Roms might be great, but the question to ask, are they providing just as safe or a safer platform, or are they opening up more risks, either way, I'm not on anyone's side, I'm just aware of the problem with my eyes open is all.

My hands applaud everyone that does the work they do, manufacturers and 3rd party, the question will always be, who do you trust more.

No one is lecturing, but you are right and I should of further clarified, yes we can Technically call it 3 categories;

Stock/Vanilla - Rom from Google

Stock OEM - Rom from manufacturer

Custom Rom - Rom from 3rd party developer

It's true we can call these 3 categories as they are, becuase OOS is also what we can consider as a Stock OEM Rom from OnePlus, but let us also make no mistake as we teach the newbies that this is also technically a customized version of Stock/Vanilla from Google.

After I made my reply I realized what you mentioned and I should of clarified it better because you are right, it was not really technically correct, we do need to show these distinctions, but the only reason I said it the way I did, to try and eliminate confusion, because I have seen in the past that some people have confused this.

Thanks for brining up the clarification, and let's keep the peace, as we share in the Spirit you mentioned before.

It's all good here...

Cheers