I can play a little guitar. But then I basically just strum. I’m not good at picking.
Now a banjo is all picking and one must play both hands at the same time.
So I say banjo. What do you all think?
Depends on type and style.
I’ve played guitar, 5-string and tenor banjos. Basic guitar strumming is easy, but you can get into very challenging areas like Chet Atkins style fingerpicking. Tenor banjo is mostly strumming, but it’s very fast and gets challenging too. There’s also picking in some styles.
The 5-string banjo style most people know is Scruggs three-finger picking. I found it challenging compared to guitar strumming, but doable. Takes time to make it sound good though. That being the case, it’s a bit limiting until you get good.
But anything hard is also limiting. My friend is great at the Chet Atkins style, but it makes everything sound the same. If you’re looking to play fun stuff soon, strum a guitar. If you want a challenge with payoff later, go for the banjo.
Are you kidding? Have you ever even heard Chet Atkins, or any good fingerstyle player? Nothing could be further from the truth. A good fingerstyle player can do anything a strummer can do and much more.
Moved from Great Debates to Cafe Society.
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Being excellent at any instrument is its own form of mastery. I have too much respect for Earl Scruggs, Bela Fleck, Noam Pikelny (Punch Brothers), Steve Martin and others to suggest one instrument is more difficult.
Both can be straightforward to learn - if you learned strumming on a guitar, you may look at the beginner basics of banjo and feel they are difficult, but getting started is getting started on any instrument.
As a rule, musicians tease banjo players more than guitar players. The basic reason is dynamics - a banjo doesn’t have as wide of a dynamic range vs. a guitar. Banjo’s are freaking loud! So they have a rep for not being subtle and for becoming annoying if not played musically. Also, banjo’s have a metallic tone, whereas wooden bodied guitars could sound sharp, but also warm and mellow.
Guitars can be played very softly with fingers or pick and then strummed loudly. And amplification meant that guitars could play at a volume level comparable to banjos, and more. So because of the great flexibility of guitar tonality and dynamics, and now the ability to play at the required volumes, guitar nudged out banjo as the instrument in jazz rhythm section - see Freddie Green for the ultimate master of this.
Hope this helps.
I’ve spent my entire life listening to Chet Atkins, Merle Travis and others because of my father. Atkins’ playing is like watching someone juggle 9 objects - it’s impressive for a minute or so, then boring.
Ever listen to Atkins’s album of Beatles’ covers? I’ve never heard anyone take the joy out of their music like that, or make their songs sound all alike.
A standard in the style is “I’ll See You In My Dreams”. A great song with a wonderful melody - which I only found I enjoyed when played by anyone except Atkins or Travis.
One could argue that the style is simply not to my taste. So I’ll say fine, Chet Atkins was amazingly skillful at a very hard style of playing. But I say again, the challenging nature of the style makes it inherently limiting. I’m sure we could name some incredible players who are able to transcend the difficulty level, but even then I find it uninteresting to listen to.
Banjo is certainly more tedious. 
Finding it very hard to adjust from 3 finger picking on the banjo to strumming and chords on a guitar. One reason is my banjo is extremely low action (strings are VERY close to the frets). The guitar seems to be very high action.
If you’re talking about true mastery, any musical instrument is exactly equally as difficult as any other. If the instrument is “easier” then the standard expected of you is higher. Piano, as one of the easiest instruments to play, has some of the most fiendishly complex music written for it. Single note lines which might sound beautiful played on a flute, will typically sound very basic played on piano. Experience has taught us to expect dense, multilayered arrangements from competent pianists.
That said, if you are talking about the instrument which requires the least skill in order to sound ‘reasonably musical’ on, I would say that guitar probably narrowly beats banjo. It may depend on your natural strengths/weaknesses/preferences though. They’re pretty similar instruments.
Kazoo wins anyway.
Dynamics you say? Last month I watched a pipa player play this tune. I’m in awe.
I wish I could play like Tosin. 
I play guitar but not that good.
There are also banjo methods other than Scruggs-style. Grandpa Jones played clawhammer style, sometimes called frailing (there are debates) and Pete Seeger used several different methods. Frailing is more like a pick and strum, and is much better if you’re singing and accompanying yourself.
Part of the rube rep banjos get is due to them being instruments of the poor, descended from slave instruments and easier to make on your own, and hardier, than guitars. And being louder, they could be a rhythm instrument, useful for dances and other boisterous plebeian activities. And of course there was the movie Deliverance, giving rise to the saying, “Paddle faster, I hear banjo music.”
Doesn’t it really depend on who’s playing them? Mastery is relative, and subjective. Even narrowing to one person, you’d have to ask which they have had more experience with.
Assuming a guitar with the same number of strings as a banjo and of similar size, why would there be any difference in difficulty? Certain styles of playing, sure. But I would expect that you can finger pick or strum or slide or whatever else on either of the two instruments. Certain styles might be more common on one or the other, but fundamentally we’re talking about strings that are regularly spaced out at roughly equal intervals, at similar lengths, to two devices of equivalent shape.
Am I missing something?
Apart from the facts that they don’t have the same number of strings, they aren’t similar sizes, the strings are not spaced out at equal intervals, or of similar lengths, and the shapes are nowhere near the same, nothing.
Well the size is certainly close enough, and the strings are spaced equally. The frets are spaced on the same principle as a guitar, with a little longer scale length being the mathematical difference. Is that what you meant by “lengths”?
But this is the answer: It’s harder to learn banjo because the guitar is shaped so perfectly for seated practice.
I taught myself enough guitar in college to be able to fool people that I was able to play the guitar. Could NOT do it with the banjo.
My son had actual guitar lessons when he was younger, and took my old banjo away to college, where he learned to play it using the magic of the Internet.
(He gave up guitar for the very good reason that there are far too many guitar players for him to be the best. Same reason I got my daughter an electric bass when she asked for an electric guitar.)
Banjo isn’t the most melodic instrument. It can have a harsh sound in the wrong hands.
I’ve attended Bluegrass festivals and banjos are great for outdoor venues. I’d really prefer not being in a small room while somebody practiced.
Guitars adapt to every style of music. Even beginners sound ok slowly strumming and singing a song. There’s big benefits in improvement and the type of music that can be played.
The Banjo has it’s unique place in Bluegrass. It’s just not as versitile.
While I agree with this, it isn’t really the point. The OP is asking which is more difficult, guitar or banjo. The answers are:
- Both are infamously “no rules” instruments so each can be approached in simple ways at the beginning.
- Each has “canonized” approaches - e.g., Classical Guitar and Bluegrass Banjo - that are obviously master-level difficult and tougher to learn.
Just to riff a bit on the two, banjos came before guitars evolutionarily. A drum with strings came before Lute, Cittern, and Oud type guitar ancestors. I’m thinking whether it’s reasonable to compare a banjo vs a guitar to a harpsichord vs a piano. The plucked strings of a harpsichord are less dynamic and can be bright and metallic - but sound amazing when played well. But the greater touch dynamics and versatility of the piano led to it becoming much more widely used. Hmm.
Banjo strings are thinner, and more slack. This makes it easier to fret. That’s one measure of less “difficult.”
I guess it depends.