I used to use aptitude more than apt-get because it automatically cleans obsolete packages for you and it combines a number of apt-* commands.
But apt-get was always the recommended tool by Debian, especially when doing a dist-upgrade.
I think apt was introduced in Debian Stretch and I've been using that for a while now. I like its ouput more than the other tools, but unfortunately it doesn't jave all the commands and options yet.
So I keep switching between apt and apt-*, but no aptitude anymore. I've been using Debian for 15 years now, so it's no problem for me but I can imagine it can scare new users.
RE: Debian/Ubuntu: apt versus apt-get