Yes for instrument flying, but I would avoid it for your private pilot's license (PPL - first license).

Your PPL is mostly about "feeling" the airplane and looking outside the window, not inside the plane at your instrument cluster. You'll pick up more bad habits than good from flying in a sim for your PPL. It's not that these bad habits can't be fixed, but it'll likely actually _add_ time to fix them.

After you have your private license, by all means, use a sim to help you get familiar with an unfamiliar route/airport/etc. I'll often even watch YouTube videos of landings at airports I'm not familiar with.

For your instrument rating a good sim can actually be quite helpful. You're exclusively looking inside the plane, setting up radios, approaches, VORs, GPS, etc. Having an intimate familiarity with how your various automations work can help.