Xiaomi Aqara gateway & Sonoff switches integration?

I have bought a Xiaomi Aqara gateway & a bunch of Aqara movement detectors & smart buttons. My plan was to link them to some Sonoff switches to turn lights on when movement is detected or the smart button is pressed. It looks like Home Assistant is the main way to do this but even though I think I am reasonably techy, my brain hurts after spending about 3 weeks trying to get my head round all the configuration needed for Home Assistant. I have connected my Aqara Gateway & Google Assistant account to Home Assistant and will probably be able to do the same for my Amazon Alexa account when I have a spare week. I just read that Home Assistant is about to start charging a monthly fee for access to their cloud service and I assume that this is necessary for the integration of the Aqara & Sonoff devices to work. I don't really want to go down the route of paying a monthly fee just to use my smart home devices. Is there another way to get these devices to integrate with each other? Or would I be better off selling the Aqara gateway & getting a SmartThings hub?

Thanks