Base products come in three physical forms and they are almost always compared on finish and coverage. Compared on handling the ranking is different and much clearer, and that is the comparison that matters if getting the product onto your face is the difficult part.
A stick is a solid emulsion in a twist-up barrel. There is no dispensing step — the product is at the end of the tube and you touch it to your face. One-handed, almost no force, nothing to spill.
A liquid needs a container and a dispensing mechanism, and the mechanism determines everything: a broad-topped pump is good, a screw-cap bottle is mediocre, an open-neck bottle or a dropper is difficult. The advantage is that liquid spreads further per unit, so a sheer all-over base takes one pass rather than many.
A cream usually means a pot, and a pot is the worst case: two hands to open, a lid to twist, and a separate tool to pick the product up. Cream in a squeeze tube is better but shares the tube's problem of getting harder as it empties.
The one thing all three share is that they need blending, and that is where the handling question gets its best answer: a damp sponge held in the palm needs no grip at all, so the blending step is the same difficulty regardless of which format you chose. That means the format decision is almost entirely about the dispensing step.
Which is why the recommendation is simple. Stick if handling is the constraint, liquid in a pump if you want a sheer base quickly and have two usable hands, and cream only when it comes in a tube rather than a pot.
