<<< INTRODUCTION / HISTORY >>>

AWKCR was created in the very early days of the game, shortly after its release. Back then an engine limitation existed which caused the game to refuse to work as intended when a certain threshold of keywords was reached in a user's load order. Therefore some people started creating AWKCR, a single and simple mod that contained all sorts of keywords, with enough variety for most other mods to work with, so that they don't have to introduce their own sets of keywords individually, but still few enough to not trigger the limit.
It was basically a workaround for that engine limitation. It didn't solve the problem but it made it more bearable. That effort was godsend back then because it made the game playable again for many users.

That engine limitation was removed by Bethesda a couple of months after. That change/fix made AWKCR basically obsolete, but since many of those early mods already came with the dependency, which in many cases was never removed by the mods' original authors, some modders kept using it and authors still made AWKCR a dependency for their new releases for one reason or another. At the same time AWKCR grew because it lost its original purpose but wanted to stay relevant. Therefore all sorts of new framework features were introduced, most of them completely unrelated to its original purpose. Even its library of keywords got extended tremendously for no practical reason.
Over time that lead to the mod meddling in areas it should have no business in and lots of feature creep. The mod, that was originally meant to improve load order management and compatibility, suddenly caused all sorts of compatibility issues. Either you had your load order patched for AWKCR or you had a problem. That became even worse the more people moved away from AWKCR. Because at that point there were a lot of new mod releases that for good reason didn't rely on AWKCR any more while many of them weren't compatible with what AWKCR had become, and older mods that still relied on AWKCR. To compensate, many mod authors of that time provided compatibility patches or offered multiple variants of their mods, a standard one without any dependency and another one built for AWKCR users. It was a mess, and still is.

At the time when AWKCR got its last update (January 2020), many mod authors and the author of AWKCR itself were working on projects to either trim down AWKCR's features and offer a bare-bones alternative instead, or cut certain features from AWKCR in form of a mod that you install on top of AWKCR. But that either hardly helped in the grand scheme of things and brought new problems with it, or the projects were never released. I guess the damage was already done. Most mod authors at that point didn't even consider for a second using or building on top of AWKCR for their current mod releases any more.

Many of the users who kept using AWKCR experienced severe frame rate drops (incl. freezes) and crashes with their setups simply because AWKCR, and some of the mods that make heavy use of it, got so complex that it is required to thoroughly manage a load order and patch all sorts of mods. And even if you do those things, no matter how hard you try to work around all those problems, AWKCR always comes with a hefty impact on the engine's performance.
As an example: AWKCR, a single mod/plugin, contains more keywords and keyword references than the base game and all DLCs combined, literally thousands of them. That's a lot for the engine to process, especially in busy areas in the game that already suffer from poor performance, and becomes worse the more mods you add on top of it that make use of those keywords as well. And that's only a single (smaller) aspect of AWKCR. This example is just there so that you can get an impression of how (unnecessarily) extensive AWKCR's features are.
Many parts of AWKCR serve no purpose because no mod in existence makes use of them. Even the most complex/comprehensive AWKCR-centric load orders will most likely never make use of more than 50% of everything AWKCR has to offer. But these things are there and active and will affect the game in many aspects regardless. That's like filling a backpack with stones to the brim and taking it with you wherever you go. Not because you need those stones, but just because they might become a valuable asset at some point - spoiler: they don't.

These days you don't see new mod releases that make use of AWKCR. AWKCR is only ever useful if you want to run these older mods from Fallout 4's early days. And in case you're interested in those older mods you should think twice if those are worth the trouble that comes with running AWKCR. Fortunately for you there's a solution available...

<<< THE SOLUTION >>>

The following part assumes that you are aware that you can't remove AWKCR mid-playthrough without breaking many things in your save files. Don't even try. The explanation assumes you haven't installed AWKCR yet or are starting a new playthrough.

You can get rid of AWKCR (and Armorsmith Extended) without also sacrificing the other old mods that still depend on AWKCR. There are some mighty fine individuals on Nexus that made it their mission to create replacer plugins for those mods, that have the AWKCR dependency removed, so that you can run them in any setup, basically freeing a load order from AWKCR's chains and oppression.

The most popular mod page of that sort is the following one: No AWKCR and AE For Mods File Dump created and maintained by user Infamous95.
That page also lists some other mod pages with additional plugins that remove AWKCR-dependency for even more mods. And then there's also Infamous95's video tutorial that explains how to remove AWKCR-dependency from mods:

• Modding Tutorial - Removing AWKCR from Fallout 4 Mods - Part 1
• Modding Tutorial - Removing AWKCR from Fallout 4 Mods - Part 2
  

• (Re-)Consider whether you really need to run a given AWKCR-dependent mod, or if you could live without it / run another similar mod instead.
• Stick with AWKCR and accept all its downsides.
  

• 4estGimp - Far West Minutemen - No AWKCR _No CROSS Cybernetics
• 4estGimp - Raider Overhaul ONE - All Files - No AWKCR
• 4estGimp - Super Mutant Redux-No AWKCR
• Cannabis Commonwealth - No AWKCR-AE and SKE patch
• DWT Cricket and Guards - No AWKCR or AE
• Goggles on Forehead - No AWKCR
• No AWKCR and AE For Mods File Dump
• No AWKCR and AE for Crimsomrider's Accessories
• No-AWKCR patch for Eli's outfits
• Raider Overhaul Spike and Cage Armor Fix - (NO AWKCR AE)
• SS Patches - Simplified Sorting - No AWKCR Replacers
• The Mercenary Pack - No AWKCR or AE
• The Mercenary Pack - Reinvention
• Toxic Raider Armor worn by NPCs - No AE No AWKCR
• Unique NPCs - NO AWKCR
• Unique NPCs - LITE
• UNPCs Creaturs and Monsters - AWKCR Free Version