Barcodes vs QR Codes: Which One Do You Need?
A practical guide to choosing between 1D barcodes and QR codes for your project.
You need a scannable code. Should it be those vertical lines (barcode) or a square pattern (QR code)?
The answer depends on what you're encoding and who's scanning it.
Traditional Barcodes (1D)
The striped patterns you see on products. They encode numbers or short text in a series of vertical lines.
UPC-A: 12 digits. Standard for US retail products.
EAN-13: 13 digits. International product codes. Your grocery store uses these.
Code 128: Variable length. Letters and numbers. Common in shipping and logistics.
Code 39: Alphanumeric. Used in automotive and defense industries.
QR Codes (2D)
Square grids that store much more data. Up to 3,000 characters versus about 20 for traditional barcodes.
QR codes can hold URLs, contact info, WiFi credentials, or plain text. They're everywhere now—menus, payments, marketing materials.
When to Use Barcodes
Product identification. Retail and inventory systems expect 1D barcodes. The infrastructure is built for them.
Space constraints. A barcode is thinner than a QR code. Good for labels where width matters.
Established workflows. If scanners and software already expect barcodes, don't switch.
When to Use QR Codes
URLs and links. Nobody types https://example.com/promo/2024/spring-sale. QR codes eliminate that friction.
Mobile scanning. Phone cameras read QR codes natively. Traditional barcodes need apps.
More data. Contact cards, WiFi passwords, event tickets—anything beyond simple numbers.
Common Mistakes
QR codes with tiny data. Using a QR code for just a product number wastes space. Use a barcode.
Unreadable sizes. QR codes need minimum sizes to scan reliably. Test at the actual printed size.
No error correction. QR codes have built-in redundancy. Use it—set error correction to at least M level.
Forgetting to test. Print the code, try scanning with different phones, in different lighting. What looks fine on screen might fail in real conditions.
Practical Tips
For retail products, stick with UPC or EAN. The systems are standardized.
For anything customer-facing and mobile, QR codes win. People have phones, not barcode scanners.
For internal inventory, either works. Match existing systems.
For printed marketing, always include a short URL alongside the QR code. Not everyone scans, and codes can fail.
Both formats solve different problems. Barcodes for established retail systems and compact numeric data. QR codes for URLs, mobile users, and anything requiring more than a few characters. Pick based on the use case, not the technology.