When comparing Plank vs Polybar, the Slant community recommends Plank for most people. In the question“What is the best panel/dock for Linux?” Plank is ranked 1st while Polybar is ranked 2nd. The most important reason people chose Plank is:
Plank is a good choice for those looking for something simple that just does its job well. There is no UI for options built in to the dock as to change anything those options will have to be accessed through a text file.
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Pros
Pro Simple and minimal
Plank is a good choice for those looking for something simple that just does its job well. There is no UI for options built in to the dock as to change anything those options will have to be accessed through a text file.
Pro Solid and lightweight
Pro Third party themer available
An additional third party app has been developed that allows theming the dock without the use of any extra resources. This is great for those that are not using elementary OS and the elementary tweaks extra.
Pro Feature rich
Pro Good design
It has a good example design which makes it really good.
Pro Eye candy themes
Pro Configuring doesn't need to be hard
Many configs can be found on the internet,
Cons
Con No right click menu for some apps outside of elementary OS
Other file explorers and terminals (those not found in the default elementary OS) do not have any right click menus for the dock meaning it is impossible to launch multiple windows for certain file explorers or terminals.
Con Poor workplace awareness (cycling windows)
When configured to only show apps on current workspace, cycling an app open on multiple workspaces will switch workspace focus, update the dock and often leave you to cycle another app.
Con Configuring can take time
Configuring polybar can be time consuming.
Con Weird to configure
Hiding the Unicode symbols is tricky.