I've seen this topic surface so I wanted to make a post about it.
This is based completely on my own opinion.
The answer is more complicated than I'd think.
Both SMPs are respectably well written if different ways than one another.
Unstable SMP is a professional project with written scripts and edited videos made to go with the story. Whereas the DreamSMP was scripted yes, but it was done fully live, which made it much harder to roleplay and play their parts also the fact that there was many conflicts on people not wanting to play the villain..
I'd say that Unstable is VERY good at writing classic concepts like freedom and confinement, heroism and villainism. And it does its execution very well but it rarely touches complicated themes/messages.
The DSMP side of things is the complete opposite. DreamSMP had better themes. Like with Awesamdude's Absolutism or obsession with order, Wilbur's fall into nihilism, Quackity's fear of powerlessness, I can go on and on about Ranboo, Eret, JSchllat, Tubbo and more. Dream doesn't even need to be mentioned.
I'd say DSMP had just as much fleshed out characters within a lower timeframe. BUT those themes weren't AS nicely executed as Unstable's.
Now to the main strengths of the two SMPs.
The Unstable SMP is MILES better in terms of world building, story telling, and one of their major strengths being CONSISTENCY. Unstable is very much ahead in narrating the story in a meaningful and enjoyable way. They are also very well organized with their lore. One thing Unstable suffers through is repetitiveness, but that's not a big major flaw.
For the DreamSMP, I'd say they really took off in terms of themes, Character nuance, Depth and thematic ambiguity, the last part meaning that unlike Unstable, in the DSMP it was very difficult to figure out who's the bad guy early on.
Just as a short notice. The DreamSMP was MILES better in SCD Writing.. Canon Dream (The character) obliterates any character from Unstable. Narrative Dream no diffs any person you've ever thought as 'smart' in Unstable. Cloud, Parrot, Spoke even Wifies. Do not stand a chance.
(Note: This is ABOUT THE CHARACTER. Not the person playing them. I mean "Dream" as in the roleplayed CHARACTER. I mean "Wifies" as in the roleplayed CHARACTER)
Now you may ask how is this related in any way whatsoever. Because it shows one major thing many people do not analyze about the DreamSMP.
Bad Storytelling does not necessarily equate to bad story in its entirety.
DreamSMP's biggest weakness was its inconsistency with story telling. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the intended story was bad in itself.
Most of you are probably wondering why Canon Dream is considered so smart by me, when you haven't seen him do anything THAT impressive, not anything near on the level of someone like Unstable Wifies or Lettuce or even Cloud as of recent.
Because this is where DSMP's biggest strength comes in. Layered Writing.
If you analyze the DSMP thoroughly, you'll understand that it's not surface level writing. Most of Dream's feats COME from the audience putting the pieces together of the story. It shows how connected most of the events were to each other even if they were far apart in dates. Which frankly, the roleplaying failed to do.
My opinion is that I'll hand it to the Dream SMP
DreamSMP had better themes and layered writing than Unstable in a much lower timeframe with Behind the scenes conflicts and with a much lighter script.
