there’s the “add tiling features to a DE” path – Pop Shell / Cosmic DE is the best known, but KDE has some pretty decent options and there’s a couple Python scripts (at various stages of readiness) for Xfce
or the “add a DE to a tiling window manager” – Regolith is the best known here (basically swapping i3 for Mutter), but along those lines it’s “relatively” easy to swap out window managers in the desktop of your choice (i3 + Xfce being an easy choice)