Flexiplane vs Spline IK

What are the advantages of splineIK vs making a ribbon (or flexiplane)? For me personally, ribbons are a lot easier to use/set up since I don’t have to deal with advanced twist.

But I’d like to hear everyone else’s opinion. Is there anything you get out of spline IK that you don’t get from a ribbon?

Overall it’s easier to get a non stretchy behavior with the spline ik.
And the distributed twist in some situations it’s very handy.

In the end it depends from the situation and if you do cartoony things I think that the ribbon kind of setup gives you more freedom.

have you tried using motion paths instead, they are more reliable!

Personally, for reliability, I’d go for Spline IK. I think this is the reason why most auto-rigging uses spline IK instead of a ribbon system.

For flexibility, i’d go for Ribbon. You just can add a lot of layers for a ribbon system. Although I haven’t actually seen an animator fully exhausted them. Maybe with those one time complicated shots.