In my experience this is partly because Homebrew has steadily moved to a "knows better than you" stance and every time you ask it to do one thing, it goes off and does a bunch of other things first.
MacPorts is well worth a spin if you're on a Mac and have trouble with Homebrew. I switched sometime last year and am very happy. I think I've actually been using it more because I know it's not going to be a pain every time.
I've been a MacPorts user since the days of Fink vs. MacPorts and tried and failed to use brew many times.
The biggest argument at the beginning for Homebrew over MacPorts was binary distribution and now MacPorts has that and can still compile custom versions if necessary.
MacPorts is always the first thing I install on a new Mac and has been for over 15 years. The several times I've seriously tried Homebrew, I get frustrated (terrible jargon, missing packages, spewing files all over my system, lax security) and go back to MP.
I've been using Homebrew for years and, although I've not had any major problems with it, I do find the slowness irritating. And also the fact it tends to ridiculous bloat by keeping previous versions of everything installed, unless you remember to do some spring cleaning every now and then.
I'm up for giving MacPorts a go. But is there a pain-free way to transition between Homebrew and MacPorts, without having to reinstall everything over again? I've installed a load of stuff with Homebrew, over the years and don't fancy having to pick through it all again to try and remember what I installed and why.
MacPorts is well worth a spin if you're on a Mac and have trouble with Homebrew. I switched sometime last year and am very happy. I think I've actually been using it more because I know it's not going to be a pain every time.