Synthetic
Almost everyone here has tried aurora and many of us use aurora store as a replacement without any problems.
However, you should understand that the situation comes down to the individual person's needs. You can download any app available on playstore using aurora and without the need of a google account. However some select apps absolutely require the presence of the actual play store and some rare ones require it to be logged in to a google account. This is quite rare but does happen, its recommended to simply avoid such invasive and demanding apps, however for some its not an option.
The google Play backend consists of 3 components. Some apps need the presence of one or more of these components to work. In such cases you need to install that component (or all 3). However in most cases you can still use aurora to download the apps (even though you have installed playstore) and they work perfectly fine, even the ones that required the presence of play store. This way you wont even ever have to run the play store or use a google account. You can even disable to google components and the apps still work.
Aurora can't auto update apps however, it can only give notifications, which then by opening aurora you can click "update all" and then it will update all apps that were installed by aurora.
Play store however can update in the background without user interaction ( the apps that were installed through it).
The apps that might prove difficult are generally banking and identity verification apps, but again most of them also still work.
You need to consider which apps you need. Best open is just to install aurora and rely on it, and see if you run into any problems. The overwhelming majority of apps work just fine.
There is a limitation about how notifications work when the play store is present as compared to when its not and disabling the playstore after install also affects this. It has been explained in detail on this forum before so do look that up.
For a complete app ease of availability you might also wanna use fdroid and obtanium to complement playstore/aurora. Search for how to setup on this forum.