IMO the LED's are the better way to go. There are a lot of DIY setups that are not very expensive that would work and you will never have to worry about bulb changes or ballasts going bad. However I do believe that the T5 systems are still cheeper to begin with but they will be needing new bulbs, I think the average is 6-9 months of usable lighting spectrum. My time frame might be a little off but the life is not as long as I would expect.