Sway is based on i3, but it uses Wayland. If you liked i3, give that a try.

just pick one don’t overwhelm yourself with choices. testing out different software is part of the experience just be prepared for possible migration. currently I’m using hyprland and I’m happy with it but for Xorg/X11 i3 is a fine choice.

I personally use and recommend Sway.

If you are the kind of person who cares about the culture around the software that you use, avoid hyprland. It’s creator is antilgbt and their discord server is pretty toxic. I also happen to think their documentation sucks.

I went back to xmonad from Sway a while back when I realized color management wasn’t coming to Wayland any time soon.

AwesomeWM if you do NOT want to tinker, it has a sane and well explained default config.