We have a salt water chlorinated pool and spa. The spa is a separate body of water which flows into the pool, so this tends to always be turned on (for heating) even if the pool is being used. The kids (and adults) rotate from the spa to the pool as they get too hot/cold.
The spa has a bubble blanket which if left on when heating the spa will normally take about 15 mins to heat up to around 36 degrees. Ours is set to 38, and the pool is set to 29, but they can go higher.
They are both solar heated and can be heated by gas as well. We only heat the spa with gas though. If we have guests over with kids we will sometimes give the pool a gas blast because the kids tend to want to go in if the weather is half decent where adults won't usually get in. I'll put the gas n in the pool in the morning, and by lunchtime it will be a nice temp in the mid to high 20's (it will already have a bit of heat in it due to the solar, of course).
There is also an automated salt and chemical computer arrangement, so adjusts the manufacture of chlorine level automatically. Called a "Salitgem" and a "Chemigem".
You still need to do the monthly (or weekly if you wish) water sample tests and add things like buffer, replace the hydrochloric acid container when it empties, etc. I take my samples to the local pool bloke, who tells me what it needs and I buy it from him. Never costs more than about $60 for the chemicals/salt etc, maybe every 3 months.
During our holiday rental period, the pool guys come around each week to do a service as part of the rental policy agreement, but for our own use we tend to be a lot more slack with it.
Ours both have in-floor cleaning too, but we are lucky to not have too many big trees near our boundaries, so the cleaning mode only gets a run twice a week for an hour each time, and the skimmer basket only needs cleaning out ever other month.
The filter system is 4 filters inside a large canister, and I have cleaned them out twice in the 4 years we have lived here.
So, not a lot of maintenance.
In hindsight, we wish we had rigged up rainwater bladders or tanks to fill the pool, which are rigged to an automatic filling level system - saves filling the pool from the garden hose every week. There is quite a lot of evaporation and spillage due to use.
If budget permits; do all of the above.
Friends of ours did their pool using a pre-made fibreglass shell, and it looks a millions dollars, but was very cheap overall to do.