Yes, you can absolutely use a WM without a DE. A DE is usually just a set of preconfigured and pre-installed applications. If you use a WM like i3 etc. you just get something that draws windows, and no settings and bluetooth applications
It influences my choosing because window managers usually don’t come with a terminal, and you have to manually install a terminal emulator. But on desktop environments I use the default terminal, although I could also install kitty.