I just saw this article on It's Foss: Plank Reloaded is a Fresh Take on the Classic Dock Experience
Although the project's aim is to make plank more compatible with Cinnamon, the lead developer has said he is planning a flatpak version. To me, that hints at perhaps usability on other desktops, too. Also, the official website states that they intend to keep backward compatibility to the orignal plank API.
It might be worth watching how this project unfolds and whether it will be usable on MATE.
I use and like Plank, probably since I come from a Mac background. It has some errant flakiness from time to time, but for quick access to commonly used files and programs, it's very convenient. It helps that one can add and remove items from it, too.
I also use Plank on my desktop - it would be great to have continuity and ongoing support/updates for the dock. Plank Reloaded looks promising in that regard, as long as it stays lean.
Dev here, and I would be happy to support Mate users as well. Just need more testers to report any issues they have. =)
Hi, @zquestz and welcome to the Ubuntu MATE Community!
Hello, @zquestz, and welcome to the Ubuntu MATE community. I'd be interested in testing Plank Reloaded on UM 22.04, and 24.04 when I upgrade (about 4 months out). However, I've no experience at building packages. Would you be providing a deb?
There is a PR for the deb file already in review. It will be available for our first tagged release in the coming days.
Excellent. Can you (@zquestz) tag us on this topic when it's available? Thanks.
Looks good. I downloaded the .deb to try it out
Very very very smooth sailing
On 24.04 LTS I switched plank with plank reloaded without any effort.
I didn't notice any difference because it loaded my settings without a hitch 
Don't install it on 22.04 LTS unless you want to solve some missing dependencies
EDIT: my way of installing
killall plank
sudo apt remove plank
sudo apt autoremove
sudo apt install plank-reloaded.deb
and starting plank from the menu. (or logout and login again)
Glad to hear all went smoothly. So far I only have the deb for 24.04, but we should be able to do 22.04 without much difficulty.
Frankly, UM 22.04 LTS support ends in April 2025. Not sure that is worth your time and effort.
Although I'm planning to upgrade to 24.04 sometime this year, I'm still using 22.04 at present, and with Ubuntu Pro, I'm not overly concerned with support. If you roll a 22.04 deb, I'll be happy to test drive it for you.
Me too
BTW, just upgraded the stinkpad to 24.10:
Plank-reloaded survived that flawlessly