Recently I wrote a paper about a project I have been doing at work and I did not want to use LaTeX so I looked up for alternatives (that's btw a funny Google search to do) and eventually found a Reddit post saying "try typst, you will thank me later", which I did and wow, was this person right.
It's essentially a much more modern alternative to LaTeX, the markup language is very decent, it has a great macro/scripting system, and the compiler is blazing fast (the first time I thought it didn't work!). They have a web app but you can also use it locally (which is what I did). typst.app
But more importantly, it has a lot of great packages! My favorite is by far Fletcher, which lets you build amazing diagrams using a text format in your document. typst.app/universe/pac.... Wish I could show you the awesome diagrams I built with it...
Anyway, now that my paper is circulating around I've been waiting for the "wow how did you build this" question but so far no one has asked it yet... 😇