I find that Neo covers most of my needs. Although there is one thing in particular that I miss: swiping actions on seperate icons to launch another app/action. I haven’t used Nova in a while, but it had nicer previews inside the options, and I find that Neo has a few minor bugs that annoy me at times. But Neo has the things that are most important to me: multiple pages, tabs or folders in the app drawer, icon pack support, search and gestures (not on each icon, as noted earlier). I also miss the ability to place icons between the defined grid as in Nova.
You need to be unplugged for 12 consecutive months for Proton to delete your account because of inactivity though, which seems fair for free tier accounts. A simple login is enough to prevent this, you do not need to send an email or whatever, simply log in once a year. You also get reminders sent to your recovery email before this happens. Data storage for inactive free tier accounts isn’t free for Proton.