Using freelance developers, how has your experience been?

So as a result of covid paycuts and not being able to pay our permanently employed developers on time they have all resigned. My MD has now told me I need to find freelancers to do all of our work. We are a small bespoke software development company in South Africa. Has anyone had experience working with freelancers and has it been a good/ bad experience? They will obviously sign NDAs and contracts to protect us from them stealing our clients and all code needs to be handed over on completion. However I am really nervous about trusting them to meet deadlines and meeting client expectations. Any advice in the matter is greatly appreciated.