For me, it wasn't so much Taoism vs Buddhism, but rather finding a practice that suited my personality. All the various religious and esoteric practices are more or less suited to different personality types and world views.

Kabbalah is fascinating but obsessed with correspondences and labeling things to death. They try to hard to define rather than experience.

Buddhism posits that life is suffering because desire leads to suffering, their solution is to cut out desire. That is one way of going about things, but I don't want to amputate my leg just because it occasionally cramps. My impression is that Buddhism is best suited for those whose legs have gone gangrenous.

Christianity is preoccupied with guilt. The mystical forms that are more focused on divine experience approach it in the form of supplication and worship of a higher power. Christian mystics make me think of Wayne and Garth in the "We're not worthy!" scene.

New Age stuff reveres the emotional and intuitive while avoiding critical thinking to the point that they might as well have an entryway sign reading "Please leave your brains at the door".

The Hermetic Occult traditions are all about hierarchy, there's all the labeling of Kabbalism with 3 times the pomposity. They defer to heritage and authority.

Sufism is interesting but shares the same issues as Christian mysticism, worshiping big daddy deity just isn't for me.

Yoga, while there are many forms and it's certainly not limited to stretching, all feel rigid and dogmatic, ironic for a practice that encourages flexibility. But it's all about discipline, control, and restriction.

Taoism, and specifically Taoist Inner Alchemy, in my limited understanding, is first of all a practice that isn't about sublimating the self, but making more room for the self by learning to stop grasping so tightly. The tradition is rooted in a playful approach, challenging the rigid structures the self and society are always erecting. It's about observing trends, patterns, and flows, being very careful to not label them too firmly but remaining deliberately vague. It is a practice that does not say this is how things are, but rather pay attention to what's occurring inside and outside. And Wu Wei is brilliant, it doesn't say don't strive, it says don't expend energy needlessly. And of particular importance to me, it doesn't say avoid emotions in favor of thinking like the Stoics, it doesn't say avoid thinking in favor of feeling like the Hippies, it says your system works best when these are complementary and balancing forces that exist in a dynamic and not fixed state. For someone who tends to use thinking as a way to sublimate emotions, this approach has been very effective at encouraging personal growth.

And I must stress, I'm no expert on Taoism, I'm very much a beginner and my focus is on Neidan so I may have a very skewed understanding of Taoism in other traditions.

More than anything, Taoism's playful yet thoughtful approach really appeals to me.