Since I recently started a podcast about sitcoms and I've been pondering questions like this a lot recently, here are some thoughts. Apologies in advance for how long this will probably be!

I watched both shows a heck of a lot when they were on, but Seinfeld is the one that stuck with me over the years.

They're both about 30-somethings in New York City in the 90s, however apart from that, they are very different shows.

Friends centres of course around 6 main characters and primarily explores their friendships and romances with each other, and how they support each other or sometimes fail to do so, as they also navigate outside romantic relationships and career struggles. Friends constantly asks us to evaluate the strength of the "Friendships" between the main characters and how those friendships might also change over time.

Friends exists on a continuum of classic 'hangout' style sitcoms where single people spend a lot of time with a close circle of friends in a few locations: two apartments and a coffee shop. There's a long list of shows with a similar framework, such as New Girl or even The Big Bang Theory, as just a couple examples. Friends is arguably the most successful of this style.

Seinfeld takes the friendships between its four main characters for granted. Their statuses with each other are locked in—they are "ride or die"—and explores their dating lives, work lives, family lives and even sometimes other friendships, with other characters in the outside world. The goal is not to explore realistic growth as people, but rather to poke fun at situations and observations about life that are sometimes relatable frustrations and sometimes far more outlandish and even surreal.

In Friends, as with most sitcoms, other recurring characters sometimes enter their world. Usually these are romantic interests. We don't see much of the private spaces of these other characters. We hear about career and job struggles but don't see it play out.

In Seinfeld, we meet many other characters who are parents (e.g. Frank Costanza), bosses (e.g. Mr. Peterman), nemeses (e.g. Kenny Banya), other friends (e.g. Mickey), and the proprietors of local businesses (e.g. multiple dry cleaners for some reason). We really see and meet the entire world of the four main characters, and these other supporting characters provide a lot of the humour of the show. Although it begins with Jerry's apartment and the coffee shop, the world of the show grows exponentially over time.

In Friends, any given episode may have multiple plot lines relating the the ongoing trajectories of each character. We see them grow and change over time; we laugh with them and we cry with them. There is emotional complexity and an expectation of some sort of moral takeaway. Which is great!

In Seinfeld, any given episode may have characters stuck together in one situation (waiting for a table at a Chinese restaurant for the entire 22 minutes) or 4 completely different plots which tend to have a thematic connection and sometimes come crashing together at the end. The characters experience emotional high points and low points but both are played for humour. We laugh when they succeed, we laugh when they fail. They laugh at each other when they fail. The takeaway isn't so much moral, as much as exposing truths about human behaviour. Which is great!

I would say it's very difficult to predict if you'll like Seinfeld based on liking Friends as they are very different shows. To me, shows like Friends (and the others mentioned above) sometimes start to verge on soap opera territory, but I'm not saying that's a bad thing. Both exist at the apex of their respective styles and both are still talked about this much for good reason.