Hugin - anyone still using it for hdri/environment maps?

I compare hugin’s forum with this one, or the amount of debate going on for Blender in general and it’s staggeringly different. At least from what I’ve seen Hugin’s forums seem somewhat deserted.

Blender is free software and I’ve been looking for free software to help me with my hdris, and everything leads me back to Hugin every time, which has been causing me nothing but grief recently. Control points not setting, manual points having no effect on alignment, UI is awkward and workflow is slow, strange bugs caused by who knows what, unclear methon function and influence, and if you manage to get a properly done layout there is still a high chance something will go wrong during stitching… I remember that I got more work done with Hugin than Photoshop in 2011, what happened? Is anyone using it for Blender?