I would vote Futures, for sure. Why? Options track an underlying, but from both sides (above and below), and require you to think about where the underlying *will* go, and where it will *not* go. Futures are a half of half the work. 1/2²....
I think it is the other way around, or? With futures, you HAVE to guess where underlaying will go or you loose money. It stays the same, you loose (rolling), it goes down, you loose.. So if you are long it has to go up or you loose (reverse for being short of course..) With options, you "only" need to know where it will not go and you can make money. I am not talking about selling 0.01 delta options with huge leverage. I am talking about reasonable delta spread etc. Heck even selling ATM SPY options has better risk/return profile than simply going long SPY or ES or SPX futures.. It looses way less on a sell-off, it makes money during no movement and it makes money during slow rise. It only make less money during huge bull run-ups, but still it makes for better risk return and less volatility..
By implication, that would mean that buying ATM SPY options is a horrible risk-reward trade. Yet despite all these things, options are not pricing at zero (so you can sell them, right?). Either every option buyer on the other side of the wire is an idiot or maybe there is something about your perception of risk-reward that's not right.
Not sure that I follow, but like I said, this strategy will under-perform in a big run up. So if SPY goes up like it does in some years, 15 % or so, you will be better of just buying underlaying. Also the risk with selling ATM spy is choppy markets where one month SPY goes up big and the next month it goes down big.. But all in all in most "regimes" you are better of. Not that much bigger return, but smoother which means a lot to most people. It is easy to say oh you usually make about 7 % or 10 % a year in stock with buy and hold and blah blah, but why do most investors realize much, much lower returns? I think volatility is the reason. Most people just cannot stomach their portfolio halving which happens in bear markets. So they buy at the wrong time and sell at the wrong time. I think most would rather give some upside potential for better performance during the hardest times - bear markets. And selling ATM put does just that But I know that you are a master of options and will somehow prove me wrong and show that my theory does not make sense from mathematical standpoint etc..