The desktop environment is the graphical user interface (in short: GUI) layer. The GUI is the visualisation of the system you interact with. Within the desktop environment you decide about background, icons, windows, menus, and toolbars. And of course the user can configure the desktop environment to adopt it even further to the individual needs.make it even more unique. This is also the reason why the same desktop manager may look differently in the diverse linux distribution.
Examples of some major desktop managers provided by ArcoLinux are (First row from left to right: Gnome, KDE Plasma, Budgie; second row from left to right: LXQt, MATE, Xfce):
Instead of using a fully featured desktop manager you can select a tiling window manager. Tiling window managers just care about the layout of windows. As the name suggests a tiling window managers tiles the window when opening apllications, e.g. a master left half window versus a stack of further applications on the right. They contain a configuration file in which you can determine the ways of tiling, shortcuts, the look of a bar or colours and fonts you whish to use. Configuration is not always easy, but there are lots of configuration files on the internet to get started.
Tiling window manager are fast and simple, but they do not provide a GUI for setting up your system layouts. However, once got used to them you might not get back to a heavy desktop manager again.
Examples of some tiling window managers provided by ArcoLinux are (First row from left to right: Qtile, Xmonad, LeftWM; second row from left to right: awesome, dwm, IceWM):
There are so many desktop managers and tiling window managers that you have the choice. Some of these are shown at your website. By thr way, if you like, you can install more than one desktop manager / tiling window manager on your system and select during login which one shall start with your session.