Hello, and welcome.
I used to have my buns in a plastic based cage, and now have a dog crate so I have experienced both.
The plastic based caged was definitely easier to clean out and kept their mess in better as it had a high base. I used to cover the bottom with news paper and put a scoop of cat litter inthe two corners they wee'd in. So to clean it out it was a case of rolling the newspaper up and getting the last few bits out with a cat litter scoop thing.
My dog crate has a second shelf in it so I sweep the top shelf onto the bottom and then sweep the bottom up and wipe it down with baby wipes. They have a litter tray in there which I empty every day, plus the hay falls out of the cage as the base is v shallow so I have to vacuum more. So this is definitely more effort.
However, the buns are so much much happier in their crate. They have much more space and therefore more varied things to do in there, and more toys. I find that they often spend time in there even when the door is open which they never did with their cage. They love the second level, its where they spend most time.........
Also, we've put a big piece of vet bad on top of the dog crate and we store stuff on there, so its quite useful for us too.
I would definitely always have dog crate now, I have a spare for when they go outside for some fresh air, they're really easy to put up and down so I just store it behind the wardrobe.