Tried use GIMP a few times, but the standards feels way too different from Photoshop.
Like basically everything.
I’m not a designer, but I use such tools once in a while to make some images, and GIMP is nearly impossible to use for me.
Currently I’m sticking with Photopea on browser.


Because it is different.
As long as you wish it to become Photoshop-like, it will remain ‘impossible’. Bu the moment you agree that it is not some free clone of Photoshop but its own thing, it starts becoming… not impossible. And I say that as an almost 60 years old dude that had been using Apple computer since the early 80s and purchased and started using Photoshop for my job in the late 90s, that is now using GNU/Linux full time.
Imho, the best way to learn Gimp, or any new software, is not to wish for it to be more like Photoshop (or any other software you may previously used) but to start using it… from scratch and to do it progressively.
Don’t try to master it or to reach the same level of expertise you have under Photoshop (this took you probably a few years, at the very least a few months… and I’m sorry to say there is no shortcuts: learning takes time. But if you give yourself small specific tasks to learn to do you will quickly see yourself getting better… faster and faster.
Not knowing what you used Photoshop for it’s hard to suggest anything but say you used to it to edit your photos. Make a list of all the things you used to do, not the tools you used to use under Photoshop just the task you want to achieve. And start learning them one at a time.
Say, learn to crop and to resize a picture. Next time, learn to change file format or to color correct. Learn to change exposition or use curves. Learn to use masking tools to do local edits, use layers, and so on.
You will also realize there are tools you used to use that have no equivalency under Gimp. And that there other tools that exist under Gimp. But learning the tools and methods one at a time will make it much simpler:
edit: typos
There’s different and then there’s worse. I switched to Linux a few months ago and gimp fits the latter category more often than not
I could not believe the answer I got when I looked up how to add an outline to text (select the pixels, grow selection, make a new layer, fill it with outline color)
Text has an outline option in gimp.
Those instructions are likely all that Photoshop is doing behind the scenes, more or less. Having to do it manually gives you control over all aspects. Want to feather the selection, to make a glow effect? You can do that. Want to make the outline a rainbow gradient? You can do that too. Want to make the outline a cutout of another picture? Turn the selection into a mask and apply it to a layer with the picture you want. Make the outline blobby? Fill, blur, adjust levels.
GIMP does not have the same focus on usability that PS does. It’s intended to be sufficient for your needs, without extra cruft and piles of macros that you can do yourself. This doesn’t necessarily make it better, mind you - but after taking the time to learn GIMP, I haven’t really missed Photoshop. (Especially after Adobe moved to their *^@# subscription model.)