Hadn't heard of w0rp/ale, but it looks like an improvement over Neomake. I feel like I've done a pretty good job at enabling a lot of features with only ~200LOC vimrc[0]. I also avoid dependencies that need to be compiled or depend on a scripting language installed to the system. My .zshrc these days even parallels my vimrc style[1].
[0]: https://github.com/jzelinskie/dotfiles/blob/master/.vimrc
[1]: https://github.com/jzelinskie/dotfiles/blob/master/.zshrc