My window manager experience:
X11 (back in the days before window managers, maybe, or was it Motif back in the day) -> something lost in the dawn of time -> enlightenment -> fvwm -> fluxbox -> openbox -> xmonad -> musl -> i3
(with probably a few more that I don't remember, and a bunch like KDE and Gnome which I've tried but never used daily, and some non-linux ones which I won't mention)
i3 has been the simplest and most hassle-free of them all. Then again, my needs have grown simpler over time. 90% of the time I have just one window taking up a full workspace, and occasionally I'll have another tile or floating window. I don't need the super complex or fancy window management features that Xmonad offers. If your needs are simple like me, try i3. :)
Also, there's a certain appeal from typechecking your config, so if it compiles it should run w/o issues most of the time.