MIUI > AOSP/Google Android, but that's my opinion.
They even fixed the shitty non existant backup/restore situation on Android, hence why Titanium Backup&Restore is the best selling paid app for years. Built in solution backups apps with data (also overrides backup permission set in manifest) and all system settings. You can run it periodically, save in desired storage location, locally or in MI Cloud. After I had to reflash cousins phone which had a vendor MIUI installed, the restore did everything and was almost a 1:1 copy.
Not to mention updates, my budget 135€ device has January 2017 Android security update and is updated weekly.
It has it's own funny things though, like expanding notifications with two fingers only and a bit fiddling to allow apps to run in background and receive notifications, but this whitelisting isn't anything different that other Android vendors have done to save battery.
I take it back. I had to check what my last Chinese phone was. It was a Letv 1s running EUI. I thought it was MIUI.
I found the software a bit frustrating but I can tell you the build quality was the best I've experienced in a phone. Mind you, all my phones have been sub £200.
I put CM on the two Xiaomi phones I own, but other people are quite happy with MIUI. It's seems to be fairly polished and is updated regularly. Not sure how it can be described as useless.
I don't get the poster above either, the success of MIUI is what propelled Xiaomi into their hardware business after all. There was (and probably still is) a decent following in the west maintaining many community ports of MIUI.
They even fixed the shitty non existant backup/restore situation on Android, hence why Titanium Backup&Restore is the best selling paid app for years. Built in solution backups apps with data (also overrides backup permission set in manifest) and all system settings. You can run it periodically, save in desired storage location, locally or in MI Cloud. After I had to reflash cousins phone which had a vendor MIUI installed, the restore did everything and was almost a 1:1 copy.
Not to mention updates, my budget 135€ device has January 2017 Android security update and is updated weekly.
It has it's own funny things though, like expanding notifications with two fingers only and a bit fiddling to allow apps to run in background and receive notifications, but this whitelisting isn't anything different that other Android vendors have done to save battery.