Replacing BAM with CRAM Files

I’m starting to explore mapped sequence data formats. Specifically the possibility of replacing bam files with cram files, as bam and/or ubam files are generally quite heavy. Thus can affect transfer and computational times used in my linux systems.

However I wanted to know if other users have any experience with similar situations where the cram files will closely resemble the original bam/ubam files. In other words, can cram files be used as alternative to bam/ubam files in the input analysis.