PAXOS is very complicated, Raft is direct response to it by simplifying the consensus algorithm. From the article:

  "It's equivalent to Paxos in fault-tolerance and performance. The difference is that it's decomposed into relatively independent subproblems, and it cleanly addresses all major pieces needed for practical systems."

One of the authors of Raft is Prof. John Ousterhout(TCL creator, among other things)