My Favorite Maxis Match CC and Vanilla Mods

I play with a ton of mods and cc but I do it to enhance the game, keep it fresh, or rotate out my BB. I like using Maxis Match content and mods that just add more vanilla gameplay. I just finished updating a lot of my mods, and cleaning up my cc and I realized that my tailored collection might be interesting to some of y'all so here it is!

Links to the Patreons of my favorite CC creators in order of most to least favorite. (Please note I only use build/buy cc)

Pierisim Definitely check out the Pantry Party collection!
Sixam CC A wonderful creator with tons of amazing packs full of useable furniture and great clutter. They also do a ton of pet and kid stuff. Small Spaces if my favorite collection.
Taurus Design I just discovered this creator and am IN LOVE! I think my favorite collection is the Judith Closet collection because I can use it like a walk in closet collection or I can use it in a retail shop. Taurus also has another closet collection called Eliza that's amazing. Also the Eliza canopy items! I am a FANGIRL for this creator
Felixandre Amazing creator for architectural details inspired by international architecture. My current favorite is the Paris collection but also check out Chateau and Gothic Revival. And you NEED the floating wall shelves from the Grove collection. Just trust me.
The Clutter Cat It's literally in the name: GREAT CLUTTER! Just gorgeous, functional, maxis match clutter. A newer find of mine but I just looooove them. However, some of it can be very alpha.
Leaf Motif If you like clutter, please check out this creator. There are some great items here but be warned that while most textures are maxis match, I find a lot of it very alpha. I definitely recommend scrolling back on their timeline to hit up the plants, though!
Charly Pancakes Great kids' stuff! I really like the Munch and Lavish collections. Please note, I do think some of it is a little too alpha but it's not that noticeable.
Tuds One of my newest discoveries. I really love the IND Restaurant collection right now but I can also recommend Crib and Lilith Chilling Areas. Just some really great usable, functionable items and wonderfully thought out clutter here.
Kaiso A must see creator who does great specialty animal items. Check out the Rodents, Lizards, and Parrots collections for decorative exotic pet items that stay true to realistic needs for these pets. As an exotic pet owner myself, I really appreciate the realism while also maintaining the maxis match style. They've also done some cute small sets like the Onion set (literally onion couch!). I cannot recommend them enough.
My Cup of CC A newer creator who does great clutter. I love the Tiny Dreamers collection.
Hey Harrie A really popular CC creator but I don't use a lot of their stuff so that's why they're further down. Merely the Coastal (for those gorgeous cabinets!) and Spoons collections
Madame Ria She does awesome kitchens with lots of great clutter. And there's this matching wall and floor tile that I just LOVE. Also a surprising amount of CAS content too.
MyshunoSun This creator did a recent partnership with EA so that's cool and their stuff is super high quality and attractive but I find myself deleting it from my game constantly because it's very unique. I use the whiteboard from the Edge Office collection and a few plants here and there but everything feels too overdesigned to put in most builds. But if you like unique items, definitely check this creator out.
Little Dica Super high quality items from this creator but I find a lot of the items are too specialized and consistently remove them from my game due to disuse. By I can say their Greasy Goods collection is amazing IF you would use it consistently but I find other creators' restaurant items are more versatile.
Simkoos Lots of great clutter here, but their stuff is super alpha. The only thing I really use are the PC gaming items so this one is more like an honorable mention.
Max20/MaxsusStore Pretty great utility items like appliances, garage sets, closet collections, etc. The Garden at Home collection is so cute. But this person has a patreon, curseforge, tumblr and I think a website so updating their cc is kinda a nightmare because they're not super consistent and use different names.

I also want to mention Kalino because they do a lot of CAS cc and premade animal creations for Cats and Dogs and Horse Ranch. Anything you want like farm animals, mythical creatures, etc, they have a massive catalogue! I think there might also be a tumblr or a website if you don't want to sift through their patreon.

If you know any maxis match cc creators I didn't mention, let me know! I'm always looking for new creators. I prefer creators who make batches of items so I can download a pack instead of individual items. It feels like getting official content.

Now for mods, I love functional small gameplay mods that make my life easier while playing. So I'm gonna list things in order of most to least functional.

UI Cheats by weerbesu Literally right click or control click on anything in the Live mode UI and cheat it from weather to needs to friendship. So versatile, so easy. A must have. The most common way I use this is to cheat my sims' sleep need down so that they will be tired and sleep through the whole night.
Stop Checking on Babies Literally the best thing in my game. I can't function without it. Basically how it works is when an infant, baby, or toddler cries, it stops the eligible sims from checking on the child because if not, they will cancel their current interaction and go deal with the kid, even if the kid is already being dealt with by another sim. This also fixes the issue where you set a kid in a high chair and then another sim picks it up immediately.
Little Ms Sam Sam is my goddess. She is that person that got annoyed by a little thing in the game, mad a tiny mod to fix it, and then published it for everyone. She has HUNDREDS of little mods so go through them and fix those annoyances in your game. My must haves are Release All the Ghosts and More Holiday Traditions.
Pandasama's Childbirth mod If you ever thought pregnancy in TS4 was ick, this fixes that. Lots of new interactions, moodlets, tie-ins with GTW, and some functional cc items to make pregnancy better. My favorite overhaul ever. Also, Pandasama has some really great toddler items that are interactable and I use all the time because I'm so tired of the dollhouse and the blocks being our only interesting toys. Panda is also great at keeping their mods updated!
Deaderpool's MCCC If you haven't heard of this mod, I'm shocked. This is the OG do it all cheat mod. If you're annoyed by certain tuning values like how often your sim gets kidnapped by aliens, friendship and romance decay, need decay, monsters under the bed, household bill amounts being too high or low, and so much more, this mod helps soooo much. My must have tunes are adjusting the pet need decay to zero (seriously, why are they so needy?), setting the option to Pause on a New Lot to ON, Sims Die on Lot to ON, raising household bills by 20%, Auto Bill Pay ON, setting friendship decay slower, and adjusting a ton of the population settings so fewer sims move in and the ratio of the different ages of NPCs remains consistent.
SNBank The best way to manage your sims' money, given to us by a group of wonderful modders. They also have some addons like a Realty system, custom bank lot and items, etc. I love being able to set up investment accounts for my sims that they can use on their phones, and get loans for more expensive houses. It's very well thought out and I haven't run into any bugs. The group keeps this mod wonderfully updated.
Twisted Mexi's Cheats So many good mods by this creator. Definitely check them out. The one I use the most is the expandable BB catalog. However, the creator isn't great at updating their mods and when they break, they are usually the culprit behind your game not working after EA releases an update.
KaBLOOM Literally shift click anywhere to make all the plants on the lot and in teh surrounding world immediately harvestable no matter the season. This helps fix that weird bug that reverts plants back to ungrown all the time. It also helps with creating new lots and growing plants fast.
Healthcare Redux by Adeepingo I really like this mod because it adds more functionality to GTW's hospital system but downloading it is kinda annoying and it gets bugged frequently and the creator isn't the best at updates. Definitely worth a try once or twice if you have GTW.
Lighting Fix Haunted Houses Paranormal Pack Lighting is bugged in haunted houses in the Paranormal pack so 12th Doctor has so kindly fixed this issue and makes playing in a haunted house not annoying anymore.
No Advice Popup Parenthood If you have kids in your household and the Parenthood pack, they will ask any adult in the household for advice that affects their reward traits and I find it so annoying so I found a mod that removes that!
Keep Tablets in Inventory No longer will sims set down tablets and laptops and then leave them there. They will use the item and then put it back in their inventory. You don't have to search for or replace the missing item anymore.
Holiday Traditions by Missy Hissy I really liked LittleMsSam's Holiday Traditions but I need more so I found these and they're great! Although I'm always looking for more traditions so if you have anymore suggestions, let me know.
Pied Piper's Crafting ModsI love this creator and their mods so much. They have Cheese making, Vinegar distilling, toymaking, and so much more. There's also a ton of custom craftable items, harvestables, and recipes available. Worth checking out!
Ravasheen's Llamazon Marketplace It literally inserts a little cc card item that you put in your sims' inventories and when you need to purchase something specific, you just click the card, "order" it, and it hops in your inventory instead of you combing through the BB catalog through all the hidden items. Ravasheen also does other cc and mods but I really dislike a lot of it because it feels so alpha and if it is maxis match, it comes in weird color swatches that don't match anything.
Brazenlotus' mods and cc This creator makes a lot of functionable cc items such as great items for retail lots so you can make a grocery store and a really cute Voidcritter pack. There's also a lot of great harvestables and recipes but downloading their mods is an utter mess. They rely on you downloading the core mod so their file sizes can stay small which I think is a great idea but it makes downloading mods from their website really confusing because there are so many dependencies. So every time I update my mods, I usually ignore this creator and forget about them until I want to play with something they made.
Expanded PlantSims Basically a custom occult pack that makes plantsims feel like nymphs in your game. I recently started playing with it and love it. It's now a staple in my game. The creator has also made a Fairies and Unicorns pack as well with amazing trailers on youtube so definitely check it out!
20th Century Plumbob's Map Replacements Have you ever looked at the maps and thought, wow that is not what the world actually looks like... well now you can fix it! Completely aesthetic but just beautiful done maps that replace the bleh ones in your game. Also, check out their loading screen replacements: they're hilarious.

I hope you find this helpful! I tried to give the most relevant links so things could be easily found but some creators rearrange their stuff so it might involve some difficult searching and sorting. If there's anything you think I should add, let me know!

I also want to mention that all mods and cc are free so the creators do this in their spare time while maintaining a full time job. If you want to support them, most of them have patreons where they release a lot of great early access stuff. If you really like someone, I highly encourage you to support them monetarily. However, there are a ton of creators out there and I know you can't support them all. I certainly can't. So my personal rule of thumb is to support my top 3-5 creators for 6 months, and then switch it up so I can show my appreciation.