Had an aluminium one, now have a wooden one.
Aluminium was cheap and nasty and looked cheap and nasty, was happy to see it go when it died. Didn’t look after it, lasted 3-4 years before the seating part went and the nuts and bolts had covered a lot of it in orange dribble. Grey, boring boring grey.
Wooden one is still quite cheap (B&Q I think), looks much nicer, chain supports are ok and more adjustable for lengths, but squeak (Some pace grease sorted it tbf). I have treated it every spring (and when we bought it), it’s 4-5 years old with a lot of small bore holes, fungus growing in bits and I’ve just replaced the side bit of the bench because the kids keep thinking it’s a proper swing and had snapped the support dowel.
During the summer it’s on the patio in the sun (this is ireland though, so often quite damp), the 1 winter it wasn’t stored on the patio but under the shed out of view in the dark (basically in direct line of the runoff from the roof) is when the fungus first showed up (had been a wet summer and the couch/pillow thing had been left on dripping wet for ages, perfect environment really).
The wooden one is a nicer place to sit and as it was wood I was able to add some small wooden shelves to the sides to be able to put your drinks on which is loads better than having to hold your drink all the time when getting up/down/reading a book etc.
So err… shelves for drinks and don’t leave a wooden one covered in damp stuff in loads of rainwater.
