KDE. It doesn’t get in the way.

KDE because I want a setup that just works.

i3wm for me, no DE. I do like KDE when I run a DE though.

KDE currently. Modern GNOME drives me somewhat insane - too “streamlined”. I used WindowMaker for a long time and somewhat miss it, but I’ve had problems with compatibility with some software (Steam).

not a de, i use hyprland.

Sway mixed with KDE,
games don’t really like it and Pipewire doesn’t work for video recording for some reason (it has to do with the KDE xdg-desktop-portal) but it’s a small price to pay for salvation I guess.

I know Sway is a window manager, not a DE - but KDE applications and services seem to fill the gaps.
They’re not necessary, but you won’t catch me dead with a GTK file chooser popup open, and I haven’t figured out how to set up Ranger to replace Dolphin (nor do I really want to).

Tried XFCE, KDE and GNOME but settled on GNOME.

XFCE struggled with window management especially when gaming. KDE is too messy and inconsistent. GNOME is just easy, and my wife can use it without asking questions.

maybe something like xfce or a tiling window manager would have the lowest recurce cost

gnome with “dash to panel” and “arc menu” extensions. familiar and unobtrusive, but seemingly resource heavy. for a low spec machine, my vote would go to xfce.

Hyprland + waybar and bemenu. Not truly a DE, but I love the look and the minimalism and I like to do things in the CLI anyway.

Gnome on my desktop and laptop. I use xfce when working in a vm, because it’s a bit lighter (I usually just need a terminal + text editor). I prefer gnome for regular use.

Gnome Wayland mainly.

I’ve been flirting with Hyprland wick seems really nice. I’d fully switch to it if gaming performance was on par with what I get on Gnome.

I use Gnome because it seemed the most Windows like on the Linux Mint website.

sway

Plasma. Though on one Thinkpad I’m trying Pop!_OS’s take on Gnome (usable launcher/grid/menu and automatic window tiling).