Pull-ups are hard. Some varieties are easier than others, of course. Reverse grip chin-ups are, for me, easier than wide grip or close grip overhand pull-ups. Corn-cob pull-ups are brutal (pull up, chin to the left, chin to the right, chin away from bar, and then back down again). 
But I like them because they're hard and because after I have done six or eight sets of them I can tell I've done something good for my body.
A professional physical trainer once told me that if you could only do two strength exercises, pull-ups would be one of them.
Squats would be the other.
I can't say anything in praise of squats.
