Stand by for even MORE conflicting opinions. Here is mime.
First, i have dropped OldRim from my playlist and mod list. If that is an issue, stop reading now as the rest is base on SSE.
My load order is fairly simple. I have the UOP and precious few mods, then about a dozen or so of my own in varying degrees of development.
I use NMM. It is available here (https://github.com/Nexus-Mods/Nexus-Mod-Manager/releases), and in spite of a few stumbles early on, the folks there seem to have gotten their poop in a group.
As I said, my list is short and simple, so I just fire up Xedit to look for conflicts and to make LO decisions.
I also use NMM for all my other Bethesda games, and I have had no problems with it.
There, one opinion down.