QR or NFC: which one fits your case
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Both technologies solve the same thing, moving someone from a physical object to digital content, and they do it very differently. A QR is a picture you print and read with the camera. NFC is a chip that activates when a phone comes within a few centimetres.
The choice isn't a matter of fashion. It comes down to three things: how far away the person is, how much each unit can cost, and what phones your audience carries.
The difference that settles almost every case: distance
NFC works by contact. The person has to bring the phone within about four centimetres of the chip, and on many models you have to aim with a specific area on the back. That means the object must be within arm's reach.
A QR works at a distance. A large printed code reads from several metres away, and that is a capability NFC doesn't have and can't have. A sign in a shop window, on a property facade, on a stage, or across a counter can only be solved with a printed code.
So the first question isn't which is better but where the person will be standing. If they can touch the object, both options are open. If they can't, the decision is already made.
Cost: free versus a few cents per unit
A QR code prints along with the rest of the design. It adds no per-unit cost: putting a QR on ten thousand flyers costs exactly the same as putting it on one.
An NFC tag is a physical component you have to buy and stick on. In small quantities it costs a fair amount each, and although it drops sharply by the thousand, it never reaches zero. For anything printed in volume, NFC doesn't compete: nobody puts a chip in every flyer.
Where per-unit cost stops mattering is on objects that are already expensive or get used many times: a premium business card, a reusable event badge, a permanent museum label. There a few cents change nothing and NFC can be justified by the experience.
Compatibility: where NFC still loses
Reading a QR needs a camera, and absolutely every phone has one. The iPhone and Android cameras have detected codes natively for years, with nothing to install.
NFC is in practically every mid-range and high-end phone, but the details matter. On some models the feature has to be switched on. On budget or older phones it may be absent. And although the hardware is nearly universal today, the gesture is not: plenty of people don't know their phone has NFC, or where the antenna sits.
That last point is what projects choosing NFC most underestimate. A sign with a QR code explains itself, because people already know what to do with one of those squares. A sign saying tap your phone here requires the person to understand the instruction, know their phone can do it, and hit the right part of the device.
When to use each, and when to use both
QR wins when there's distance, when volume is high, when the audience is broad or not especially technical, and when the medium is paper: menus, flyers, signs, packaging, invoices, shop windows, inventory labels.
NFC wins when contact is natural and the experience matters more than the cost: a business card tapped against someone's phone, a plate on a hotel room door, a badge used a hundred times, a luxury product with authentication.
And there's a third option that gets used too rarely and works well: putting both on the same object. A card with an NFC chip and a printed QR covers everyone. Whoever knows NFC taps; whoever doesn't, scans. The QR costs nothing to add, so there's no reason to leave it off an object that already carries a chip.