Much depends on the speed , rigidity and accuracy that you want to achieve and on design of the motor/controller/feedback system .

A rough and ready machine can use a variety of basic motion drives but as requirements get more demanding then higher quality drives are needed .

Also a machine running closed loop with independent position feedback is usually a little more tolerant of basic motion drives than a machine running open loop and which is dependent on the intrinsic accuracy of the screw/chain/belt .

Incidentally a cheap motion drive for undemanding applications and smaller machines which is often overlooked is the friction screw - just lengths of coarse pitch studding and simple nuts with backlash adjustment .