It’s a bit of hyperbole to say you’ll spend more time maintaining a Creality printer than using it (Ender3 S1 Pro here), though I agree with the sentiment that you should think twice about them unless you enjoy the tinkering and learning aspect of the hobby.
If you want high quality (and fast) prints right out of the box, the tradeoff is you will need to spend more than Creality money.
I would also second PrusaSlicer. I saw significant improvements in print quality and speed using mostly their default Ender3 settings versus what I was able to cobble together in Cura.