My experience with clerics:
In a campaign I'm DMing, one player has played a human life cleric through LMoP, several AL adventures, and now 2/3rds of Curse of Strahd and is now level 8. Very powerful character once he hit about level 5, always has something to do, certainly has never complained that the class feels weak. Has plate mail which is a difference maker as it's very hard for non-casters to do anything to him, plus has really high wisdom saves. His Achilles heel is a -1 dex modifier.
Another campaign I DMed, my wife played a water genasi storm cleric through all of Sunless Citadel, several one-shots and some homebrew stuff, and some material pulled from Out of the Abyss. By default, she was often the party's primary front-line warrior (rest of party was rogue, bard, wizard, ranger) and was excellent in that role. Class felt very strong, and especially through tier one felt effectively like a fighter who was also a full caster.
Currently, I'm playing a hill dwarf arcana cleric in a friend's homebrew campaign. With magic missle, spiritual weapon, two wizard cantrips and dwarf weapon training, the character has solid offense and is versatile with a lot of utility in and out of combat. Unlike the life and storm cleric, the arcana cleric's channel divinity is very situational (can turn a single fiend, celestial, elemental, fey, or abberration) and relies on the DM to give you the opportunity. Has a good AC and excellent hp so can tank but often doesn't because the party is in trouble if he does go down. This is a hard experience to judge because the DM has house rules that put a lot of pressure on the cleric (there is no healing on short rests, and getting knocked out can cause lingering injuries). I did not know about these house rules before making the character. If I had, I would have made a life cleric as magical healing is very important in this campaign a la 2E, except that in 5E magical healing can't keep pace with damage and isn't really meant to keep everybody on their feet - it's designed to keep them from dying. But certainly the class itself as designed isn't what I'm struggling with in that campaign.
In a campaign I'm DMing, one player has played a human life cleric through LMoP, several AL adventures, and now 2/3rds of Curse of Strahd and is now level 8. Very powerful character once he hit about level 5, always has something to do, certainly has never complained that the class feels weak. Has plate mail which is a difference maker as it's very hard for non-casters to do anything to him, plus has really high wisdom saves. His Achilles heel is a -1 dex modifier.
Another campaign I DMed, my wife played a water genasi storm cleric through all of Sunless Citadel, several one-shots and some homebrew stuff, and some material pulled from Out of the Abyss. By default, she was often the party's primary front-line warrior (rest of party was rogue, bard, wizard, ranger) and was excellent in that role. Class felt very strong, and especially through tier one felt effectively like a fighter who was also a full caster.
Currently, I'm playing a hill dwarf arcana cleric in a friend's homebrew campaign. With magic missle, spiritual weapon, two wizard cantrips and dwarf weapon training, the character has solid offense and is versatile with a lot of utility in and out of combat. Unlike the life and storm cleric, the arcana cleric's channel divinity is very situational (can turn a single fiend, celestial, elemental, fey, or abberration) and relies on the DM to give you the opportunity. Has a good AC and excellent hp so can tank but often doesn't because the party is in trouble if he does go down. This is a hard experience to judge because the DM has house rules that put a lot of pressure on the cleric (there is no healing on short rests, and getting knocked out can cause lingering injuries). I did not know about these house rules before making the character. If I had, I would have made a life cleric as magical healing is very important in this campaign a la 2E, except that in 5E magical healing can't keep pace with damage and isn't really meant to keep everybody on their feet - it's designed to keep them from dying. But certainly the class itself as designed isn't what I'm struggling with in that campaign.