You could try Yabai [1], but it's a bspwm clone not an i3 clone. Still not as zippy as the TWMs on linux, but a pretty decent experience overall. There's also Amethyst [2] which kind of replicates xmonad. In most ways they're worse than using the linux ones, though at least you retain the full features of Aqua and Quartz, while trying to integrate i3 or other TWMs with a proper DE in linux remains to be a hassle.
I am familiar with both projects. And both are doing amazing work working around the limitations of MacOS to being some sensibility to the OS’s window manager. But yabai from what I remember requires you to disable SIP or to get it to fully work and on top of that I have cooled on my zealotry for MacOS over the years. I used to be a huge fanboy. But now I am a bit creeped out by all the ways Apple is trying to make it hard to leave the ecosystem. By how interconnected everything is. Also I love and support the brew project but … it’s not as fast or as robust as a proper package manager. (Maybe nix could come into play here.) But ultimately I am most keen on using proper Linux for the container tech, the customizability, the freedom, that containers run without the need for a VM —- that being said I hear arm64 VMs run super well on the M1s and … I dunno maybe I will revisit the Apple side of things. I just wish I could get the amazing Apple hardware and M1 or M2 performance and just run my own OS on it. The asahi folks are helping with that.
