What kind of protection is the best and why?

Such a hard question to answer it so open ended but l will give it a try. l personally like cams they r light easy to use & easy to remove when cleaning the route. l use Black Diamond & Metolious cams. A good cheap way is nuts hexs & stoppers. these r cheaper can fit in many different spaces & some can even be placed activly kinda like a cam. the plus side to nuts anhexs is they r not super exspensive so if u get one jammed u can leave it behind & not worry to much about . A cam on the other hand is leaving behind like 60 to 130 bucks. You can also carry big brothers for large crack climbing but these r very specific & exspensive. My advice is never buy used gear its not something to save money on because these thinigs r gonna save ur life & carry a little more than u need, never want to be starnded on a climb no fun. To long to reread so sorry if l spelled things wrong

The best kind of protection is the one that is easiest to set & holds the best in the rock where u place it.

My favorite placement is a sewn runner girth hitched around a rock or through a hole in the rock - as long as there r no sharp edges. These do not depend on friction to hold & can not really fail unless the rock breaks.

Next, l would say a nut or hex - especially if it is placed in a narrowing crack where u have to ''slot'' it into the crack & then can slide it to a narrower place where it physically cannot come out. The only problem with these is that they can be harder to remove (clean).

Cams r great because u can set them very quickly when u r leading something that is difficult for you. They can walk around after they r set so they never seem as good as a nut or hex.

Good Luck

One of the challenges of doing trad climbs is determining which pro to take, because no one rack ''takes care of it all''. For example, if where you're going has nothing but very thin cracks, cams r worthless (except for the micro-size cams). If where you're going has nothing but WIDE cracks, once again cams r worthless, & u need Big Bros. You can not bring ''everything because then u will get bogged down with gear. And then there r climbers who will bring pitons, even though today those r condemned at nearly all places. Rock climbing pro has been evolving in the past half century, & by now almost all of them work, & work pretty well---it is just a matter of choosing which to use for the climb u want to do. l do not know of any type of commonly available protection that l would NOT recommend for any climbs.

As a rule, the good thing about cams is that they're quick, versatile, & reliable---the downside is that a full rack for a climb with long pitches can be pretty heavy. But if you're entering ''unknown territory & u plan on hauling bags of gear with u anyway, being safe than sorry is not a bad policy. Otherwise, l rather just take nuts & hexes.

Joey P & Tahoe T both have given good , l agree 100% with what they've said.

The best is to have various gear with you, so you haver a choice while you're on the route. l usually place nuts as much as l can and save my cams for places the nuts wo not go, or for uncomfortable stances because they are quick to place.