The short answer
Ground coffee is cheaper per cup and lets you control dose and grind; drip bags cost more but need zero equipment and travel anywhere. They're the same thing at heart — ground roasted coffee — just packaged differently. A bag of grounds is the value choice for daily home brewing; drip bags are the convenience choice for portability, portion control, and no cleanup.
It's not really "better vs worse" — it's "cheapest at home" vs "easiest everywhere."
Taste and freshness
Both brew from real ground coffee, so the flavor ceiling is similar. The nuance is freshness. Coffee is freshest right after grinding, so whole beans you grind at home have a slight edge over any pre-ground coffee — including drip bags.
But drip bags close most of that gap by sealing a single serving, often nitrogen-flushed, so the grounds don't stale on a shelf the way an opened bag of pre-ground coffee does. In practice, a fresh drip bag can taste better than week-old grounds sitting open in your cupboard. (More on that in how long drip bags last.)
Cost per cup
This is ground coffee's clearest win. A standard bag of grounds works out to roughly $0.20–0.40 per cup; quality drip bags typically run $0.60–1.20 per cup. You're paying a premium for the filter, the individual packaging, and the convenience.
That said, both crush café prices — a $5 coffee shop cup is 5–20× either option. Compare your own numbers with the coffee cost calculator. If cost per cup is your only concern, grounds win; if you value never measuring, cleaning, or carrying gear, drip bags earn their premium.
Which should you choose?
Buy ground coffee if you brew at home every day, already own a dripper or press, and want the lowest cost per cup. Buy drip bags for travel, the office, camping, or any time you want a fresh cup with no scale, no dripper, and no cleanup — see what drip bag coffee is and how it compares to instant.
Many people keep both: grounds for the home routine, a box of drip bags in the bag for everywhere else.