On the last three devices I installed F-Droid on, it was unable to update itself or update apps period. When I hit the Update button it would throw up a generic error message and Googling that message yields hits for multiple F-Droid issues from the past several years.

They have a long way to go before their software is usable. It's a shame because I would happily promote F-Droid to other people, if it worked.

There's a difference between manually confirming updates and manually installing the update APKs. Having to go through the "install", wait 10 seconds, "Ok" process for every single app you want to update is a terrible experience and is the main reason half of the apps on my non-rooted phone are outdated.