Yes, but also not really? Not sure if enabling “Keep Inventory” counts as cheating in survival Minecraft or if it counts as a play style. Of course creative mode is only cheating when you use it in a world that was meant for survival, but I haven’t done that. Really unsure what counts as cheating in Minecraft singleplayer to be honest.
Other games: no, not really, I don’t even know how to cheat in Hollow Knight for example, Universe Sandbox is fully a sandbox game so you can’t cheat, and…
Oh wait, I guess I did use Assist Mode in Celeste once? I think that counts as cheating since I didn’t really need assist mode at all I was just frustrated and wanted to have fun. Yeah, sometimes I cheat actually. It’s fun in singleplayer and doesn’t ruin the game for anyone else.
Yeah, it is incovenient when you play Java and other people you know play Bedrock (or vice-versa). There is a community-made plugin called Geyser that allows Bedrock players to play on Java servers (it can be buggy sometimes but it is the closest we have to Java-Bedrock crossplay).
Bedrock makes it easier to play with friends, it also has cross-platform support (except for Linux and Mac). Console players can only play on featured servers (unless they use workarounds).
Java is better in most other aspects (I am biased for it though, since it’s what I play): you can mod it, play older versions, use custom shaders (with mods), no microtransactions, play on any server you want, (apparently) less game-breaking bugs, etc.
On console you can get texture packs and add-ons… from the marketplace.
On other bedrock platforms (Windows or Mobile) you can install textures and add-ons from your own files. The problem is that Bedrock add-ons are significantly less capable than Java’s mods.