So my 2 cents is that the answer is you have to try both and how it fits with your lifestyle & goals. There's absolutely a major difference when it comes to the amount of time you have to tend to the grow from my experience with the two.
I started with hydro, didn't know wtf I was doing and it's not like you can be detailed in the hydro shop in a red state several years back so no mentoring/knowledge sharing other than forums! So of course like any noob seems to do I tried to push things too hard. Bought the snake oils and tried 'em all - again without a clue really - and sure I got some good smoke. Killer smoke compares to the mexi commercial crap I grew up on. I primarily was hand-watering some various mediums and also ran some flood & drains with smart pots.
I finally decided I didn't want to be dicking around with mixing nutes all the time, checking pH, dealing with air and water pumps, the air pump noise especially as I needed discretion and the vibration could be heard even with dampening efforts. Also the pumps are a failure point as others have mentioned - so that was a big deal to me. I also have limited amperage and I'd rather be using that for lights or hvac needs.
My first organic runs were just 7gal smart pots sitting in big ass trays for catching runoff. 1st time didn't have elevated and that wasn't really smart. 2nd time I used small lifters to keep them up a few inches and not in standing water. I have since moved to using SIP(s) and they rock.
My goal is minimal time & effort with best yield/quality and not needing constant tending to - I have other things to do with my time. Like others mentioned I can leave for a week and not be worried - my SIP(s) have large rezs so I can easily put 5-7g in there. I run EM1 and keep the anerobics going and no pumps at all. 2 runs into these SIP(s) and not looking back other than for curiosity/experimenting/for-the-fuck-of-it. I did the 1st one and gave it little top-fed love potions with NFTG goodies and things like SLF-100 and PhotoSynthesis+. The 2nd run I had a few variables that resulted in a less than stellar run weight wise but I intentionally did not do anything but a single top-dress mid-flower. That 1st SIP run was a personal best and doubled prior runs. The 2nd not so much - but quality was still awesome.
A few folks that don't know I grow sampled this latest SIP/living soil run - even from the worse plants which do seem to be stunted but dense buds and potent af - said it was fire smoke and better than what they had been getting which they thought was top shelf. Again I'm in a red state so what do they (we) really know about latest fire right? I gotta get to a legal state at least for a visit!
Best advice anyone could give you (imo) is do the side-by-side with a strain you know if possible. Convince yourself by sampling the end products of each. But I do think the best quality I've had is from organics/soil. I had actually been considering a top-feed/dtw coco run with some clones I have needing used up but it'd be under my old LED(s) and not a real equivalent to current main setup. But like I said above, I'd still run synth/coco for playing around - worse case give the bud away.
