Just don't open the drawer if you don't want the drawer - doesn't that make the most sense versus looking for something with few features? Never look to Apple for the right answer - that is always a good place to start.
Nova launcher lets you customize how the app drawer is opened - so you can turn off gesture opening via one of the other options. Nova is a great launcher, I switched to the paid version a couple of years back and found it to be my favorite. I just wish they'd launch Nova 8 which has been in beta for 2 years already.
Well, Nova is not open source, and Nova 8 is not exactly the thing I like. Too feature stripped and Nova is now owned by an ad company. I still stick to Nova 6, very stable.