[AWildC182]

Buy an unlocked bootloader phone (ie oneplus) and put lineage os on it. Lineage doesn't come with any of the google apps or the play store, just a few basic apps and the ability to put whatever else you want on it.

[rehemiau]

This is what I've been doing for a few years now. Some apps require Google Play Services (Revolut?), some show a warning that can be ignored and run fine afterwards (Authy, Signal), some have limited functionality like no notifications (Slack), but many work just fine (Firefox, Spotify, and even Messenger Lite)

[hestipod]

Microg has forked LOS and packaged it preconfigured https://lineage.microg.org/

Useful if you want play services and store function without Google. But I know it has it's own security concerns so not clearly "better" overall.

[swiley]

What makes alpine nice is that it’s super easy to compile yourself and hack on it.

Have you ever tried compiling android? It’s not fun.