Trip in August - how to move around

Hello everyone!

Me and my BF are planning a couple of weeks in your beautiful Country in August. The plan is land in Almaty and then go around the mountains and scenic places.

We saw lot of tour guide online, but they look quite expensive for what they offer, like 130$/person, sleeping a shared room, moving with minibus, to do some small hike 1-2-3 days max. So for 2 weeks is tooooo expensive.

So we would prefer to be independent as you can imagine. Is it a good idea to rent a car and drive around by ourselved? I read very opposite answers online. Rental cars looks very expensive online, much more than paying for the tour guide basically if we consider sleeping in a better place and buy our food. But we are willing to pay more if it's worth it.

What's the conditions of the street if we want to reach the mountains (East part), lakes, hiking path and stuff like that?

Thank you :)