This is one of the most frequently asked and fiercely debated questions in the fitness world. In the end, it really comes down to your training goals and preferences.
Because free weights aren’t connected to anything, they force your body to stabilize itself throughout the lift, thus activating a wide range of ancillary muscles.
Strengthening these ancillary muscles offers benefits for all your lifts, as you’ll be training many different muscle groups at once.
The balancing act of stabilization also improves your hand-eye coordination at large, making more complex lifts much easier to perform.
In contrast, cable machines allow you to isolate and focus on specific muscle groups by providing the stabilization and support for your body.
They allow you to get a full range of motion and guide your body into the correct form for each lift – but forfeit training the smaller muscles that would otherwise perform these tasks.
Thus, cables are much more safe for beginners and those recovering from injury. With free weights the biggest disadvantage is really safety – if your form is bad, you risk injury.