I use a steel for maintaining my knives that have a secondary bevel, it produces a nice and toothy sharp edge that can be refined further on a strop if you wish, I only need a stone a couple times a year at most for those knives even if I am using them a lot.
I don't use a steel for my scandi knives though, as over time it would add a secondary bevel that would be very time consuming to take back off with the stones.
For those I just use a stone and a strop.