I have downloaded 3 steam mods: housing markers, open cities and midas magic none of them work even though i have suscribed and when i start up skyrim it says its complete. But my nexus mods work. So is it you can only have one or the other at a time or can you use them both?

This might be whats known as a loading error. You'll have to load the files in a specific order I think. :\

I'm scared to start using Steamworks mods.

NMM handles everything so nicely.

Steam has practically ZERO information and control over a mod compared to the Nexus.

They are trying to make things simple, but in reality, their model is just never going to be as good as Nexus until such time that it is 100%, guaranteed-to-never-fail-or-cause-a-conflict perfect.

And yes, I do understand that a lot is at the mercy of the modders, which just goes to further the argument that a model where the end-user has total control is always going to be better than a completely automated model.

Anyone who "guarantees" lack of conflicts on as complex a thing as a modern PC with modern software is lying.

Try any software or any computer. Bash at least gives you the info upfront.