When comparing Whipper vs ripperX, the Slant community recommends ripperX for most people. In the question“What are the best CD rippers for UNIX-like systems?” ripperX is ranked 1st while Whipper is ranked 13th.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Actively developped
It might be the only secure ripper for GNU/Linux that's in active development besides Rubyripper as of 2019.
Pro Most features
(of any secure ripper on Linux so far (2019))
Pro FLAC encoding
Pro Simple to configure and execute
Pro Encodes CDs
Pro Configure interface allows easy tuning of output quality
Enables access to some of the more advanced features like scratch repair or FLAC compression level.
Pro Can easily be patched to work with www.gnudb.org (after freedb having gone offline)
Recompile ripperx v2.80 with patch from here.
Cons
Con Might refuse service if it can't access impeccable metadata for your disc
Must use --unknown flag if ripping a CD which doesn't have a matching TOC in the MusicBrainz database.
Con No graphical user interface
As of 2019 there is no GUI available yet, so some users may be repelled or have a steep learning curve. If you can't do without a GUI you may want to give the somewhat more limited Rubyripper a try.
Con No choice of file type
This is only for Ubuntu.
Con No alternative to freedb
With freedb going offline, there's no clear way to get cddb info.