This is only true if you're fine with reinstalling the side-loaded app every week. This is a pretty major caveat imo. If you want the app to stay on your device past a week you need to buy the paid Apple Developer subscription.
My paid developer subscription expired two years ago. I suffer from all restrictions of the free tier (can't publish to App Store, can't use StoreKit, SiriKit, etc) except for the need to re-install the app every week.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯