Depends on the era of apps. If you're doing mostly bitmaps (that is, Qt4+, GTK2+, anything that draws its own UI, anything with HTML incl all electron, anything

Depends on the era of apps. If you're doing mostly bitmaps (that is, Qt4+, GTK2+, anything that draws its own UI, anything with HTML incl all electron, anything using GL, anything using composition) then VNC will work better, as it transfers better bitmaps. Working with Xlib, GTK1, or Qt3-era or earlier apps, X will perform astoundingly better. Test with xemacs next time, and you should see your results inverted.