I use GNOME daily on one of my laptops and I don’t agree at all. It has some surface-level similarities, but overall is more comparable to something like iPadOS or Samsung DeX when connected to an external screen+KB+mouse.

The global menubar is the biggest difference, but there’s also a pervasive difference in philosophy throughout the desktop; where macOS will have power user functionality tucked away in a menu or hidden behind a modifier key (progressive disclosure), GNOME will just remove the function altogether.

Pantheon is very similar, except dressed up in an (admittedly pretty) skeumorphic theme that reminds me of OS X 10.9 Mavericks.

That’s not to say it doesn’t have its charms, I use it after all, but it’s not a Mac OS analogue in any way.

Gnome is very different from Aqua.

I used Gnome daily for a really long time. Gnome 3 is actually pretty good these days but it took a while to get there.

Aqua is still pretty solid but some of the shine is starting to fade.

I have all the Apple Intelligence stuff turned off yet I got a pop up ad in the OS for “Image Playground”

Apple’s solution? Turn off Image Playground in Screen Time settings. Ridiculous.

Gnome's top bar isn't a global menu, though. It's completely different and IMO pretty much useless.

KDE has a global menu bar that works like the one in MacOS.

Kind of. Last I checked it’s broken under Wayland, and under X11 there’s a lot of apps that don’t populate it.

I'm using it under Wayland right now. Though you are right that there are apps that don't populate it.

It's pretty hit or miss. And so far, for me, nothing comes close to topping Hyprland -- I'm perfectly happy without a global menu bar at the moment.