You might like something like i3 (if using X) or Sway (if using Wayland), or another tiling manager like Xmonad.

They are extremely minimal and really get out of your way. I had to write my own service to power the info on the Sway bar [1] because the entire thing is so minimal.

For me, I have title bars in windows disabled, and the gap between different windows is literally 1 pixel.

[1] First version: https://github.com/tombert/swanbar Rust rewrite: https://github.com/tombert/rs-swanbar