Someone in my family got dentures and he had all his teeth pulled out which meant a week recovery at home and then he was fitted for the dentures. It took a few fittings to get them to fit right and I believe it was an adjustment for him to get used to eating with them, etc @gondwanalon is right – dentures often look too perfect, like a wall of teeth.
I have implants and can only speak to implants. I am a big advocate for implants. I know they’re expensive. Insurance pays for part.
You should explore with your dentist what he recommends and what insurance will pay for. If your dentist does one or the other, he is likely to recommend whatever it is that he does, so that you will be his patient for that, so be aware of it. In other words, if he does dentures but not implants, he is probably going to recommend dentures. If he does implants but not dentures, he will say implants are the way to go.
For the implants, my surgery was done by a gum specialist and then the crown is made by a dentist, who sends it out to someone who actually makes it. My first implants were actually done in a dental school (Columbia Dental School, NYC), over 25 years ago, and the implants are still doing well. That was way cheaper than a regular dentist, but required more visits because it’s a school, so they have more of a procedure. The surgeon in dental school is with the professor, and because it’s a school, they have newer and more advanced equipment than my regular dentist. For example, they used screens (like a TV screen), which, 25 years ago, was advanced. Now it may be more commonplace. At the time, the cost for implants at the school was half of what it was elsewhere. It was 700 dollars for the surgery and 700 for the crown, 1995/96. Now it’s about 5k per tooth, total between the surgery and the crown.