>>3028899Arca swiss compatible is at this point the quasi industry standard because it has high versatility and sits very securely even in short, fairly roughly finished or worn clamps. Works great with a lot of styles of brackets and plates and stuff and things. No problem to get the required groves integrated into a camera L-bracket, for instance, even if it's not going all the way around both sides of the L it still works,
Manfrotto's plate styles are actually in mostly incompatible styles (Q2, Q5, RC2 and RC4 come to mind, maybe there were more). Some of which can be inserted by pushing down on the tripod socket from the top.
Most of them do not sit as tight as Arca ones and they do not have nearly as many heads, brackets and plates to choose from, partly also because a bunch of these need to be exactly a certain size.
Apart from these, there are quite many shitty vendors who tried to make their own plate styles to gain some extra money, but few use these.
I personally just say: Go with Arca unless you know you can't for some reason. It'll give you more choice, cheaper on average.
