I moved from awesomewm to i3. The big difference for me when I changed over was that i3 didn't use templates for window placement. In its place is a tree-style

I moved from awesomewm to i3. The big difference for me when I changed over was that i3 didn't use templates for window placement. In its place is a tree-style system that's fairly intuitive IMHO. In i3 I also frequently switch between tabbed and split/tiled layouts, which IMHO is a killer feature.