Both amplicon and metagenome sequencing present distinct advantages as well as disadvantages. Your method of choice should be based on your research goal. The successful outcome of a project typically depends on several factors such as community composition, the abundance of closely-related species and sequencing depth.

Amplicon sequencing offers suitable taxonomic profiling of a large number of samples. The approach enables the detection of subtle differences between microbial communities, which makes the method beneficial for statistical comparisons, such as for case control studies or for sampling varying environments over time.

Metagenomic sequencing does not rely on a certain set of primers, which frees the method of taxon-specific PCR biases. This makes possible more accurate representations of the analysed microbiota and more dependable estimations species abundance. Metagenomics analysis can provide information on both the taxonomic as well as the functional characteristics of a given sample.