Neither are true backups & both are bug ridden. If you've ever had to actually restore from a backup, or god forbid your 'backup' was stored on a different machine than where is was synced from or where the iTunes dB is housed, your in for a rude awakening. Apple backups, whether iTunes or iCloud, do not back everything up, presume so many things that no regular user would know, and are filled with bugs & problems. Just go to Apple Support sites and type in 'problems with backups' or 'backup errors' for iPhone, iPad, iTunes, & iCloud. You will be horrified to see 1000s of posts & tons of unresolved issues going back 3-4 years. Also, if you have data in your iPhone or iPad that has everything you want & like, and is complete, just the way you want it, Apple does not support a complete upload from your device to recreate your iTunes database, or even merge with it an existing one, like just about every phone, tablet, & computer on the planet do... You can only get easy things like songs & pictures uploaded from your device. Much of your content for accounts, passwords, texts, emails, calendar, notes, contacts, etc. are stored in an Apple proprietary file that does not upload from the phone or merge using iTunes or iCloud. Your only choice is to write over what's in the phone, losing that data forever. For these reasons, soooooo many people don't use iTunes or iCloud backups, because they are nearly useless. Most folks use 3rd party software to backup the Apple devices, though things in that Apple proprietary file are not viewable or usable, because Apple keeps them proprietary. I amazed that Apple can actually call what they do a 'backup' in any shape or form.