NFC Tag vs QR Code - Everything you Need to Know

Recently, NFC technology has been used as a replacement for QR codes, as they are supposed to be more reliable and faster. Let us take a look at both of these technologies and what their differences are.
The most popular usage of NFC tags so far is placing them under car windshields for opening security gates or garage doors. While both of these technologies can be used for this purpose, what is the difference? How does it work - how to scan them and which one will unlock the door faster. Thus, we'll compare NFC vs QR code scanning speed in this article.
QR codes are 2-dimensional barcodes that usually contain a small amount of textual information like website URL or contact information. The most popular usage of QR codes is adding them to commercial products like packaging of food supplements, toys and various gadgets to be then scanned with a mobile application that decodes the code into textual information which can be used by the application on your smartphone. They are great for sharing URLs, phone numbers and other short pieces of information.
QR codes can be of various sizes and complexity, but more complex they are; harder is to scan them. You need a proper QR code reader on your phone and it has to be within reasonable distance of the code (10-30 cm) and sometimes adjust the light when you're scanning outside in the direct sunlight. Also, QR codes are made to be scanned straight - you need to hold the camera in a perpendicular angle with regards to your phone.
Unlike QR codes, NFC tags contain only a small amount of information stored on them and it is meant to be read once when activating an action or triggering an event. More often than not, NFC tags are used for switching on WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC on/off or starting some application.
Therefore the time it takes to scan an NFC tag is determined by how long it takes you to pull out your phone, open the correct app and hold your phone until the app decodes information from the tag.
NFC tags are therefore much faster than QR codes as you don't need to find a QR scanner on your phone. On the other hand, NFC tags are very limited in what can be done with them as they contain only a small amount of information - usually an action identifier and sometimes some additional information.
Hope this short overview is helpful for you when choosing a technology for sharing some piece of information.