Ubuntu uses Snap packages, even within apt. If you type sudo apt install firefox in Ubuntu, you get a snap package of firefox. If you type the same exact command in Mint, you get Firefox as an apt package directly from Mozilla’s publishing source.

What I dislike about snap packages is that they automatically update without user input. For a desktop system this is wholly unnecessary and can lead to security issues down the line if one package’s packager is compromised, despite snap’s supposedly great sandboxing.

I strongly prefer Mint over Ubuntu Cinnamon because I can fully control when updates happen and don’t need to fiddle with the default settings for that to be the case. Mint has greater respect for the user, from my perspective.

LMDE is a nice option, as well, since it uses upstream Debian packages instead of Ubuntu packages the way regular Mint does.