Kvaesitso takes a little to get used to. It is not like a traditional launcher and is no where near as customizable as Nova but I still really like it.

If you don't like having a ton of icons, only use a limited number of widgets, you like to use a search bar, and you don't like shoving things in the app screen in to folders, I suggest giving it a try.

The home screen only allows one row of icons. You have a set of icons as your favorites in the app screen. You can use tags, rather than folders, to organize icons.

It is different but it is very polished.

I switched to action launcher years ago and it still works great. The ability to have a default app in a folder is so convenient, you tap to open the app you use most, or swipe to open the full folder. I'm not aware of another launcher which allows this.

I only have one screen for everything I need because of this feature, with the full app list available on the left and a widget panel with my calendar and weather on the right.

I never see it mentioned in these threads though, I guess because it's not FOSS. I tried lawnchair and the gap in features is massive.

I use Total Launcher - it has up and down swipe gestures but also left and right. It's a bit of a learning curve, much less intuitive than Nova was at its peak, but very customisable.

Yeah if it weren't for the laundry list of glitches and no new releases since I think 2022 (the December 2023 date was a mistake, there was no change at all, it just overwrote the release date) I would also be using neo. But i got really tired of accidentally resetting all my damn widgets because I moved an icon wrong, and having to manually remake them since they wouldn't restore from backup.