The Pirate Bay and Kickass Torrents are the top two file-sharing sites in the world. Which site is the best and most user friendly for file sharers?

The sites, after some hosting changes, are now both up and running smoothly and locked in a head-to-head battle for the No. 1 spot.

While The Pirate Bay was exclusively the top torrent site for years, Kickass picked up a slew of new users when it took over after the recent downtime at The Pirate Bay due to a server raid by Swedish authorities on Dec.9. As we reported in the first of our series, determining which site is tops in usage is a difficult call right now with all the domain name changes.

Although The Pirate Bay has been back up and running for almost a month now, many former Pirate Bay users may have switched their loyalties upon trying a new source for the latest and greatest torrents. But which one is actually better? As in the battles of Mac vs. PC, Android vs. iOS, and McDonald's vs. Burger King, each side has a ton of supporters and there is in fact no clear winner -- it all depends on taste.

When it comes to the superficial aspects of each site, that is site design and user friendliness, there are clear differences. While The Pirate Bay uses a bare bones design approach of old school fonts and minimal graphics, Kickass is more aesthetically appealing with its more modern style of design and organization. As a result, many users find Kickass Torrents more user-friendly, while staunch Pirate Bay fans prefer fewer bells and whistles. Both sites have dedicated forums for users, but The Pirate Bay forum, Suprbay.org, is a separate website, while the Kickass forums are part of the main website.

What about the torrents, which ultimately allow users access to download the content they seek, themselves? Does one site have more or "better" torrents than the other? While supporters of each site insist that their favorite has more or better (i.e., more seeders, higher quality) torrents, the truth is that it all depends on what specific file a user is searching for. Since the sites themselves don't actually host the files and are merely trackers, it is the community at large, and in some cases the site moderators, who post the torrents to each site and who are responsible for the majority of the content. That's why there's a huge overlap in terms of the torrents available on both sites.

The number of "exclusive" torrents on either site is minimal compared with the amount of shared content, and any torrent on either site can easily be uploaded to the other. Still, avid fans of both sites routinely insist that their favorite has more or better torrents, and this is probably true for each individual user, based upon their specific experience, which depends largely on what they're searching for. Safety is also an extremely important issue, so much so that we'll be dedicating an entire article to it in the next of our series comparing the two sites

What do you think is the best torrent site out there as far as site design, torrent quality and availability? Is there a specific category of file that you have found in which one site excels over the other? Let us know in the comments below, and look out for the next in our series comparing Kickass Torrents and The Pirate Bay, coming soon.

Note: Second in a series on file-sharing torrent sites. The first article in the series can be found here.