I'm a Ubuntu user trying out Debian 9.4. Since Ubuntu 17.10 I've been happily using netplan.
I do not use Network Manager, preferring to work with all the pieces myself.
Edit after installing Buster
Netplan is available in the Buster repo and runs just fine. The executable is installed to /usr/sbin which by default is not in the root path. sudo will find the executable or we can add /usr/sbin to root path.