If you have to pick, which one?
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Both have different things to offer, and each has different approaches and can create sound texture and mood, I would not discount either.
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Oh nooo! This is too difficult a question!
Fingerstyle comes easier to me 
just for me and those like me 
But I do love strumming! My fingerstyle sounds way better than my strumming…but I know very well what good strumming sounds like…will I ever get there? 
Eh…Renan…I can’t answer your question…maybe I should go for fingerstyle but say you listen to Cat Steven 'sweet steel strings…? Eh…which one would you chose?
I don’t have experience with fingerstyle, (well I have 0.1%) but I would chose it because you don’t have to sing, have a band or a backing track to sound full and complete in my opinion , but strumming is amazing as well. It’s apples and oranges. This is just to have fun
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That’s impossible,
Over the years I developed a style that goes from strumming to fingerpicking but with a lot of hybrid ideas in between. It ain’t black 'n white!
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I think while we are in the early stages of learning (I’m talking the early years, not days or weeks) it can be useful to pick one or the other and concentrate on it otherwise you can just end up spreading your practice time too thinly.
With that in mind, as much as I’d like to learn finger style at some point, it’s very much on a back burner for me right now and I don’t see that changing for quite some time
I actually sing all the time …ooops…if I’m playing fingerpicking patterns I sing a song, but also if I play a chord melody I sing the melody internally silentlly and let the fingers find their way to create it on the fretboard…I just love singing 
that is called also dynamics in a wider sense, right? I want to get there!
Not only is “dynamics” a matter of power and volume, but the dynamic of energy can indeed be regulated by the dosage of strumming and picking and where you time it. (For example, doing a lot of picking in the beginning of the song, and at the end, doing a lot of strumming as an energetic crescendo.)
The “hybrids” I mean here often involve partial chord strums between picked notes, or having a very strum-like hand movement while still mostly picking—patterns of several picked notes with strummed upper or bottom strings, etc.
Also, the simplest dynamic of switching between picking and strumming between the verse and chorus can be a first step to making a song more interesting!
To those willing to experiment, I repeat myself once again:
- Rhythm is king.
- Don’t learn (fingerpicked) songs note-for-note; instead, go for muscle memory picking patterns you like over the chord structure to mimic the “vibe” without over-focusing on the exact notes.
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Man this is complex 
I’m sure glad nobody told Warren Hynes, Mark Knopfler, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, the new guy Ed Sheeran and hundreds of my favorite Rock and blues guitarist that you can’t use your fingers and sing
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I know it’s a sarcasm but I still can’t understand you’ve just said 
I’m on the right track, I can do this! Also getting quiet again with fingerpicking at the end sometimes.
It is the exact way around with this arrangement of a children 'song I recently made, it’s a waltz and I apply a delicate fingerpicking pattern for the verse, a fuller one for the chorus, but in the end it works really well to make it bigger so the chorus is repeated a second time with strumming…but since that short chorus is so nice I added an E7 and then G7 to switch from the key of A to the key of C, so we repeat the chorus a third time but raising it by 1 tone and a half…ending on a C chord on the 8th fret…for good measure 
I learnt it from Justin’s arrangement of Greensleves: the last chord, which is usually the key, I play an octave higher, like a bar chord up the neck - a little trick which sounds great!
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Strumming vs fingerstyle… what about playing with a pick, and mixing up single string picking with strumming? That’s what I seem to gravitate towards at the moment.
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He sid you don’t have to, not you can’t
I started playing only fingerstyle and that’s my favourite. Problem is when you jam with others and they are all strumming with a pick, you can’t hear any of your fingerstyle. So I grab a pick and play / lead different songs than when I’m performing on my own.
There are also some songs that just sound better strummed and some that really suit fingerstyle.
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What about fingerpicks? They’re available as standard picks and as Alaska picks – perhaps a way to play fingerstyle with a brighter, louder sound
that’s an option, i’ve often used a thumb pick, but haven’t liked fingerpicks. I still believe the best way to be heard in a pack of pick based strummers is to use a pick and strum as well.
I’d love to be able to fingerpick well, some songs are just beautiful fingerpicked. More than that, I’d love to be able to confidently use a puck to hybrid pick/strum and pick out notes, that also sounds awesome.
Its a long work in progress but progress is being made
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What kind of fingerpicks have you tried? Did you have any problems with them, or do you just not like them?
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