You should probably look up
John Palmers "How To Brew". The link is to his web site and you can read an earlier version of his book on line for free. The second thing I would HIGHLY recommend is to go and listen (and watch in later years)
Basic Brewing Radio. You can subscribe to the podcast or listen/ view on the site and or on a smart phone.
They are fun and aimed at beginner to more advanced and at one point or another talk about just about anything that can be brewed.
Cider, IMHO, is a lot easier to brew than beer. Like anything though there is a significant difference between "brewing XYZ" and brewing good XYZ".
But still Cider really only takes a bucket some suranwrap and a big rubberband (to seal the top of the bucket. You are going to need some way to get into a "serving container". But for still dry cider that can be just about anything that can seal.
With pasteurized you will need yeast and you may want to add sugar, but at a basic level that's it.
Frozen juice generally lacks "character". I did two batches with it and people liked it but when I switched to non concentrated juice it improved a LOT.
Preservatives will kill the yeast so make sure there are none in whatever you put in.
Brewing beer is a bunch more complicated. It's still not rocket science at a basic level, and you can make some great beer at a basic level so...
Or you can go crazy with computer automated whiz-bangs and spend a fortune.
As a way to get cheap hootch, neither are very cost effective. Though cider might be at least competitive with cheap wine. Actually that isn't true. If you aim really low you can make stuff a lot cheaper than you can buy. But you may not want to drink it. Making good quality of either will be cost effective compared to high quality commercial products but is not cheaper than rotgut commercial products.