I actually prefer a good mod portal to the workshop.
The workshop is terrible for mods. It's a fucking mess to know if a mod is supported it not. The subreddit even has a spreadsheet to figure this shit out.
It's also a pain to use different mods for different saves.
The mod portal in Factorio is amazing. It's very easy to know if mods are up to date and you can click a single button to deactivate/activate/install mods so that your active mods match the mods used for a specific save. The game even asks you before loading the save.
It's a shame about the performance though. I will probably wait a bit.