When comparing Solarized Dark vs Molokai, the Slant community recommends Molokai for most people. In the question“What are the best VIM color-schemes?” Molokai is ranked 2nd while Solarized Dark is ranked 7th.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro There are versions for a lot of applications or it's easy to make your own
There are ready-made packages for Vim, IntelliJ, Emacs, iTerm, etc. If your app isn't supported the website explains clearly what colors are used, so it should be easy to wrap up your own.
Pro It seems that is has been given the most thought
Judging from the description that has been given by the author, it seems that this color scheme has been designed with huge background knowledge about colors and relations between them.
Pro Works well with multiple fonts
Since Solarized has pretty good color separation it's easier to distinguish both thin and bold fonts.
Pro Looks great
Pro One of the most common dark themes
Default for Sublime Text, avaialble on IntelliJ products and Eclipse via plug-in. Usually ranked in top 3 of highest downloaded theme for a IDE.
Pro Strong enough contrast
Without being fully black on white (which is good on modern already very contrasted screens) it remains pretty dark compared to many alternatives; making it more readable.
Pro Easy to install with Vundle
Cons
Con Too much blue
People caring about the color intensity in their screens, will notice that this theme is not useful for night use. If you use software like Flux to dim the blues in your screen this theme loses its enchant.
Con Low contrast
Comments for example, have very low contrast against the background which makes it harder to read.
Con Vanilla version doesn't work with htop
Half of the usernames in htop have the same color as the background.
One has to use a patched version of htop.
Con That pink
The pink color is too vibrant if compared with others. It pops out from context and may blend with red errors in some editors.