I joined steemit back on July 13th. Since then I have been using both sites daily and I've noticed a few positives and negatives of using both.
Censorship: The big reason I came here in the first place was to get away from the censorship on reddit. At this point I'm not sure which site is the better of the two on this aspect. Reddit has moderators who can and do censor content. This can be pushed to the extreme in subs like /r/bitcoin. On the other hand here you have people and bots that flag posts. Those flags are often done for no other reason than censoring content based on personal beliefs not on a valid reason like spam or plagiarism.
Content: Here it seems like the content is more based on personal stuff. There isn't that much good discussion on important topics. I want to see and discuss things about bitcoin in an open uncensored forum. Steemit does not seem to support that kind of discussion. Thread are limited to around 4 nested replies making it hard to keep discussions going. For the kind of content and discussion I'm looking for I'd have to give this one to reddit. I have noticed that there s less content on the subs I read on reddit lately. Not sure if things are just slow or people are moving to steemit and other platforms.
Voting: I used to vote all the time on reddit but now it seems like I hardly vote at all. Over here I do vote quite a bit, sometimes too much. Maybe it's thinking of voting power that has me voting less on reddit or maybe it's just votes have little meaning there. Steemit gets this one.
Trolls: This one is no contest. Reddit is a troll fest. Steemit with its voting/reward system seems to keep the trolls at bay. Steemit gets this one too.
Bots: Bots are annoying on reddit but here they can do actual damage. Getting wrongly flagged by a bot can kill any chance of people reading your thread and voting. Steemit just has way too many ways bots can be bad so reddit gets this one.
Layout/readability: This one definitely goes to reddit. The category approach and thread layouts there are way better. It's so much easier to find what your looking for and move between your favorite categories on reddit. Following topics is also a lot easier on reddit. I usually find myself just skimming the new page and trying to find what interests me. If I'm eating I go to reddit because it's so much easier to navigate and read than steemit.
Comments: I hit on this above a bit but wanted to go further. Comments are an important part of and forum. Here they seem to take a back seat. You have the nested comment limit I mentioned above that cuts discussions short many times. Money is another issue with this. People don't vote on comments because they want curation and comments rarely make any money. Most comments are simple observations with the author maybe replying. On reddit you have huge discussion (and arguments) on the simplest of threads. Usually the discussions going on in the comments give you more content than the post itself. This one goes to reddit by far.
History/search: Both are terrible at this. There needs to be better organization and categories on steemit with a real site specific search and filtering.
Time: Steemit has won this one at least for me. I spend so much more time here. If it wasn't for meals I might forget to read reddit.
Money: Of course steemit wins this one since there isn't any in reddit. Still it's disappointing to see how the system works and can be rigged here. Votes still got to popular people with a following not necessarily to content. If this site is to succeed in the long term that needs to change. This post will probably be read by very few people because of who I am not what's in it. I don't have steem power and am not on any of the curation lists. You don't need to be popular on reddit to have a post get a lot of votes.
So which site wins? I'm not really sure. Reddit has been long established giving it that foothold. Steemit has the money advantage (and disadvantage). Both have their strong and weak points. The question is what one will adjust to better suit it's users.
So that's my .02 SBD.