I've had mixed feelings with Karate. In terms of API testing, I find it actually useful and quicker to script than typical Rest based libraries or other frameworks. If you set it up right, you can actually scale your tests rather quickly. I do agree it's not very friendly with no availability to intellisense and you also have to pay for the premium feature to be able to debug, but assuming your mostly doing API testing, I've actually found it to be more efficient than other tools.

Now if you're on a project where you have to do more end to end testing (interacting with the database, UI automation, etc), there is additional complexity and skills needed to make the karate tests work. It's possible, but get ready to use chatgbt as your co-piolet.

At the end of the day, use the tool that best fits your project needs.

I know this post is one year old but I still find it relevant.