From my experience of both (living on a farm), it depends on the dog.

My parents had two collies - one spent his entire life going up and down a fenceline watching the cattle and sheep (literally, he ran all day - wore himself a track under the hedge), but the other was much more mellow. To be honest, having lived with two, there is no way I would bring a BC into a family home where it wouldn't have a job to do. You may have trouble getting one if you have children and not much space - a lot of rehoming centres have experience of BCs being returned by people who cannot cope with them. They need WEARING OUT on a daily basis!

The golden lab they have now was bred by a relative of ours (respected professional breeders) and the dog ended up dumped by his owners at a young age through no fault of his own (marriage breakup). My parents took him on and he was TOUGH! he was exceptionally clingy, used to climb all over people, force his way on to your lap etc etc. Big dog - not good. He is now a lot older and a lot calmer - and is superb with the grandkids, shares a house with three cats (who boss him around) and is generally a nice dog to be around. Labs can be hard work when young, but tend to calm down as they get older.

On balance, if I had to choose between the two, I'd go for a lab.

I think Labs make wonderful family pets and that border collies are better on a working farm than in a family home situation.

had a collie mix and had to walk twice a day, an hour or an hour and a half at a time

LABRADOR

they eat, sleep and are happy with half and hour and playing in the garden

but then you have the vets fees with the hips..

however all that walking -- if you have young children you could find the dog is having more attention than any of your individual children (I did)

We had a BC when I was a child. She was a 'retired' sheepdog - highly trained, but would only follow instructions given by men. (When she was still working, if the farmer was away, my dad had to go and help out Mrs Farmer because the dog would not round up the sheep for her!)

Even as a retired dog she needed at least two hours energetic walking a day and preferably more - and she spent most of her time outside running about.

Not pets, I would say.

I have a border collie, she is very clever. I do a lot with her.
I have done obiedience (although she has stopped this now as she passed her Gold Good citizen and there didnt seem much more I wanted to teach her).
I also do alot of agility with her and sheep herding which she loves.
She is great at home although I would never trust her completely with the children.
She has issues around other dogs but advice from the sheep dog training lady has helped me enormously.
she is lovely and she isnt really very hard work as she just chills out at home but this is probably because she does a lot of other stuff. (I have a Springer too and he is ALWAYS moving)
They are great dogs but the lady who I do the sheepdog training with is overrun with requests to take in BC's with behaviour problems so make sure you know what you're taking on.
Oh and she has no interest in Frisbee's! she does like to play ball but she can't usually get it as my ball obsessed springer gets there first.

I have a 10 mo lab atm but have also had a BC in the past.

Both are/were very happy, loving dogs with great natures.

Our BC was really easy to train and loved games, was extremely obedient and great with kids/other dogs. He needed loads of exercise though and could be a bit nervous around strangers and loud noises.

Our lab is proving a bit harder to train and he chews EVERYTHING (shoes, remote controls, toys, bags, literally anything left out). He is so good with the kids though and has a very even temprament so nothing really bothers him.

If your intrested in collies have you thought about a rough collie totally different nature to borders still needs a fair bit of exersize but is also happy to chill out good, with children they do make excellent pets and are very loyal,they do moult a fair bit but apart from that they are wonderfull

I had a border collie she was a beautifull loyal dog but, and this is a big but, she was really highly strung no amount of exersize helped and by the time she was three she was dangerous, after speaking to out vet she said this happens to lots of bc in normal family homes due to lack of understanding. We sought help from a couple of behaviourists to no avail and she had to be put to sleep. We where told that she was to full of nervous energy and that we where the wrong type of home for her as we didnt offer enough of the right kind of stimulation even with the four children we had at home. I would think very carefully about taking a border collie I hate what we did to ours and feel awfull that because we didnt do enough research a dog was pts they are working dogs with a huge prey drive and need constant stimulation they are extreemly intellegent and as such take up a hell of a lot of your time so if you cant offer that then not the best dog to take

i had a bc who although was beautiful and very, very intelligent - was also very highly strubg.

A 2 hour walk was the absolute minimum we could get away with, twice a day.

She rarely slept during the day and was always "busy" doing something.

Someone i spoke to said that her BC was still wanting to herd sheep at the age of 16 so if you get one, be prepared for a lot of work for a very long time.

As a family pet, I would go for a lab although they do moult an awful lot more. We had yellow hair everywhere for quite a long time after she died

DP's mum has a collie cross, lovely lovely dog very intelligent and very well trained, she went to dog training and loved it. Does not like children at all and we don't even take her for a walk in the park if there are children playing with a ball as she thinks all balls are hers and grumbles at children. I stress she is not a bad dog, just we don't trust her to let her near children at all, which can be true of any breed I think. She's also very highly strung I think, gets upset by loud noises etc.

I grew up with labs in our home, plus uncle had labs and brother has a lab now. Never met a nasty one, although met a couple of not very bright ones.

If I was choosing a family dog now I'd go for the lab over the collie.