reading some posts and doing some research it appears kegging is superior to bottling.
However, as a first time brewer is it a safer bet to just bottle?
Or does the convenience of a keg justify the cost despite being a first timer?
*Disclaimer*
I have no equipment yet. A friend and I will probably be buying a few extract kits in the next couple weeks and whatever equipment needed for some basic 5gallon batches.
but we do have a full size fridge that we'll get a temp control for for fermentation.
I think you should bottle at least 10 5-Gallon batches before you even consider kegging.
Bottling just takes a little time (small fraction of time invested on brew day really). Plus some minimal costs in starsan, bottles that you probably have anyways, and some bottle caps.
Having set that aside, I think it is actually better than kegging - much more practical and ultimately better for beer. For the following top-10 reasons:
#1. You can bring your homebrew with you anywhere, and give away bottles to your friends and family.
#2. Cost: bottling is much, much less expensive. Unless you value your time very highly. In which case you should buy commercial brews, as brewing takes a lot more of your time and it's not cost-productive to waste your time making your own beer when you can just buy it at the store.
#3. Less hassle - no worrying about exchanging tanks, worrying about pressure, storing those compressed gas cylinders, flushing and cleaning the lines, etc. Just clean/sanitize bottles, that's it.
#4. More "retro"/"old school". This is how beer was stored and conditioned for centuries.
#5. More "natural" and "crafty". The yeast creates its own CO2, not forced-carbonated via a tank of CO2 you bought in the store. If you think using extract is a shortcut from all-grain process, so is using forced carbonation.
#6. Space: Don't need extra space in the fridge/kegerator - just put a few bottles at a time, according to your consumption needs. I can fit dozens (hundreds if you count my cellaring chest-freezer) of different home-brews in my fridge, but I can't fit dozens of kegs.
#7. Conditioning - beer gets better over time with yeast in the bottle. People get excited about conditioning inside cask ales (CAMRA) but bottles do pretty much the same thing and provide more unique tasting experience to kegging.
#8. Aging - can age some strong beers for many months and years.
#9. Bottling/priming process teaches you "zen" and patience.
#10. Kegging gets auto-corrected to "begging" in my browser. Nobody asks if they should start "begging".
Of course if you do go keg path, you could still bottle from the keg. Yes, in theory you could also "age" beer in kegs. You could even still serve beer from 12-keg or 50-keg kegerator if you were clever enough to build one. But very few people do that. If you have weekly parties when lots of friends routinely come to your house and will drink 10-15 Gallons of 2-3 batches at a time (and they won't care about lack of variety), perhaps kegging makes sense. If you want to stretch your brews over months, age them and compare them, then I would say bottling is a better strategy.