To extend Ethernet to remote location, are Powerline extenders or Mesh systems better?

Assuming your have Coax wired through your house you could also consider using a MoCA network.   I switched from Powerline to a MoCA 2.0 network and the frequent Roon hangs and random streaming skips went away.

I have Verizon Fios and TiVo and they both rely on MoCA and I noticed my TiVo streaming worked much better when I had it MoCA enabled vs its Ethernet setting (using Powerline).   So I purchased a couple of MoCA 2.0 adapters (e.g. https://www.actiontec.com//products/ecb6200/) and have been very happy with their performance for music streaming including many hi-rez files stored on my NAS two stories away from my dedicated listening room.

Cheers

Almost 30 years experience as a network architect for Very Large Network company.

Avoid network extenders - they do extend range but at a cost of 50% of your throughput. As you add devices, this catches up with you and performance and reliability degrades rapidly.

Mesh routers are vastly preferable as they seek the hub with the strongest signal and lightest load.

As Wifi 6 is adopted, its improved parallelism will support more devices and higher throughputs

The best mesh implementations use a wired backhaul to the main hub and 3 wireless channels (not 3 ip subnets).  

In the context of a domestic LAN, issues of jitter and latency are not meaningful, although packet drops are sumptomatic of range and load limits, as well as defective infrastructure, bad cables or connectors.

In short, nothing an extender does ultimately helps SQ. Everything a mesh router and Wi-Fi 6 do can help it. 

To panzrwagon

Your input and expertise is helpful. Do you have a point of view on Ethernet Over Powerline systems, and whether that technology, even if it passes the network signal well, will add noise onto the AC line that hifi gear and related power conditioners will fail to properly filter out? 

Also is it fair to assume EoP will have superior speed over mesh and wifi extenders as the signal never goes through the air?

Over the years I’ve had two sets of Powerlines, and they’ve worked, but are limited.  I never used powerline while I had a high-end hifi.  Therefore, I would question how a high frequency powerline signal on your mains might affect your hifi components.

I now have a Netgear Orbi mesh system, and can get ~700Mpbs over the 5G backhaul. There’s no competition here.

The Orbi is a technically very good option. I just don’t like the company. Their support, in my experience, seems to prioritise upselling you. They also dabble in sharp practice. For example, they’ll email you to inform you of an impending re-subscription to their Armor protection. No mention, though, will be made of the price. Want to raise a complaint? Then you’ll have to subscribe to their support option. Want to use the "family protection" service? That’s another charge. I should add that my Mesh system (1 router, 3 satellites) was ~£1k