Went from Nova via a few others and ended up with a minimalist beauty that demands nothing : Mako (f-droid) (I miss the double tap off but use the quick settings 'lock screen' button).

I primarily switched (to Kvaesitso) because I don't use Google search and it was impossible to remove the Google search bar from my home screen on a Pixel. I do enjoy the greater degree of customization as well.

I can somewhat recommend Dragon Launcher. It's gesture based around "app circles". You arrange your apps in custom circles of arbitrary nesting and swipe to get there.

The main downside imo is the extreme pace of development; most releases fix this or the other issue while introducing new bugs. The config format also doesn't appear particularly stable through upgrades, it's probably time for a config reset for me.

Yantra launcher for weirdos who like the feeling of cli. I used to love tui-launcher but it was abandoned. I tried switching back to normal launchers but even minimal search-based ones feel clunky. It's the only kind I've tried that felt qualitatively different

I use kvaesitso and love it, but it's certainly an opinionated approach. But while it is search focused, you can customize it to make it more traditional

unLancher, baby. Just...look at it.

https://f-droid.org/packages/com.jkuester.unlauncher/

Sleek. Simple. Sexy. Salubrious.

I switched to KISS launcher a while ago (years ago?)and I absolutely love it. It is search based but you can have tags for apps which allow you to have something akin to folders. If an app fits two tags then so be it, it will show up in all the tag folders, so organisation can be much cleaner. It is also blazingly fast and keeps things clean.

Lawnchair seems to be a better experience over stock, as it has a lot more customisation options. Though my experience with it is that it has rather slow updates and icon packs don't work saperate from the app drawer and home screen. It should, but it didn't work for me

Kvaesito: minimal UI with many unique customizations/features.

I wish Niagara was FOSS and actually let me costumize my home screen without AI bullshit. I just like my alphabetical list.

Niagara or Pro Launcher. I accidentally paid for the latter before realizing Niagara does the trick just fine.

The minimalist ones take a different approach, and are really great at encouraging less phone use: minimo launcher, fokus launcher, olauncher and its variants, etc. There's some theory around why grayscale and text are less addictive than colorful icon grids, widgets, and multiple pages, but I can't find it right now.

I'm currently on murine launcher because I have a tiny phone, but I use black and white icons with arcticons.

I like InkOS, minimalist, in an epaper kinda way. Just dont like the notification module but I disable it. And I use Snowbell as the font, love it.

For me is important what launcher (or any other app) doesn't have. No bloatware, no games, no ads nor trackers. And then number two - it should have enough features for simple use, after that it should look simple. Yagni launcher on F-droid.

Aio launcher has changed my world

I do it to disable things in the launcher that ships with my phone. In many versions of android you can't get rid of that dumb search bar wiget or that even worse experiences page if you swipe left from home. I don't ever use them, but they get in my way, it's my phone I want them gone.

As a side note I also dislike circle icons, but I dislike even more that they change the shape with every major release of android.

Well you switch when you feel like something could be better, like for me, I personally got OCD so I dont like a grid of apps, hence I use those minimal launchers that don't have icons and just a search bar. I know evey app I have installed and delete any if I dont see a use for it in the near future, but that's just me.

Currently using fokus launcher

If you prefer a minimalist experience, Victoria launcher is the more customizable app with KISS bwing more minimal, while MetroWin launcher provides a super customizable Windows-Phone-like experience

I agree with yoiu. People's obsession with customizing their UI to be JUST SO seems really weird to me, whether it's Linux or Android. I'm utilitarian at heart and for sure there are some UIs that work better for some things than others, but overall I find most of the discussion in this space motivated by control-freakery over practicailty, like people would rather spend time researching, installing and customizing their UI than actually doing anything with it.

And that's fine. People are allowed to have their hobbies, but I, like you, wondered what was wrong with me that I didn't care about it until I realized there is nothing wrong with me at all, it's just not something i have interest in.

Though I will admit I did get into that WIndows power user UI editor thing that let you snap windows to a predetermined grid for a little bit, but that's when I was spending a lot of time transferring information between 3 different apps....