While Twilight follows the romance between Bella and Edward and sometimes Jacob, nothing compares to the love triangle between Damon, Elena, and Stefan on The Vampire Diaries. This is one reason that TVD is better than Twilight.
This love triangle is compelling as it's unclear who Elena truly belongs with. She has amazing chemistry with both Salvatore brothers. However, in Twilight, Bella was never all that interested in Jacob romantically.
On The Vampire Diaries, Elena doesn't become a vampire by choice. Instead, she passes away and becomes one because of the vampire blood inside of her.
In Twilight, the dramatic question of whether Bella would become a vampire in order to truly be with Edward or remain human has always been much more interesting. She decides to become one as being pregnant is going to kill her.
Twilight lacks interesting minor characters. With the exception of Alice Cullen, who seems mysterious, the Cullen family is pretty dull and Bella's high school friends, including Jessica, aren't much to write home about.
The minor characters are way more interesting on The Vampire Diaries. Everyone from Elena's brother Jeremy to her best friends Caroline and Bonnie are cool and strong-willed.
Bella lacks one major thing in Twilight: a relatable personality and life. She doesn't want anything to do with anything or anyone in her life other than Edwards
Elena's human teenage life is definitely more entertaining and easier to relate to. She seems popular enough at school and has friends and feels like a regular person.
Family life on The Vampire Diaries is complicated and difficult. The Salvatore brothers don't get along (to put it mildly) and Elena's parents tragically died.
The baseball scene in the first Twilight film proves that the Cullens are a fairly normal American family. Since normal families don't really exist in TVD's universe, this is a great switch up. Sure, they're vampires, but they do have some normal aspects.
The Vampire Diaries does something else better than Twilight: it has witches, not just werewolves.
Sure, Jacob is a good character, but he's no match for Elena's best friend Bonnie, who is sweet and smart and who also juggles being a regular teen girl with figuring out her magical powers.
Edward and Bella's love story feels more romantic than the ones on The Vampire Diaries.
As a fan put it on Reddit, "The fact that Bella's only real priority was Edward and vice versa is such a nice 'idea.' It would never work out well IRL, but it's just fun to read about a situation in which two people love each other that way."
While Stefan might be a good vampire, that's not exactly true of the rest of these characters on TVD. They're all super evil and fairly terrifying to watch.
The Cullen family, on the other hand, are morally good, which is more interesting since the concept of a nice vampire isn't really what we think of right away.
A lot of death and dramatic scenes might go down on The Vampire Diaries, but that doesn't mean it's a super serious show.
The series has a sense of humor, and that's something that Twilight lacks. Bella is kind of self-important and doesn't exactly smile, laugh, or joke around with people very often.
The friendship between Bella and Jacob feels sweet and innocent, even though, yes, he does have a huge crush on her. But they seem to just genuinely like hanging out when they get the chance to.
On TVD, the friendships all have conflict and an agenda. Caroline and Elena are often upset with one another because of their love lives. And Elena even almost murders Caroline near the end of season four.
The Vampire Diaries is better than Twilight because Elena is a stronger character than Bella. Many people feel that Bella is wishy-washy and that she doesn't have enough independence.
Elena feels spunkier and smarter than Bella, and she's not a doormat at all. It's sad when she leaves the show and fans are thrilled when she comes back for the finale.
It's definitely interesting watching Edward and Bella start a family, especially since no one would have ever guessed that would have been possible.
This dramatic pregnancy and birth is something that TVD lacks, and it's something special about the Twilight saga, even if it seems a bit over-the-top at times.
The final battle scene in Twilight feels like a cop-out as the battle against the Volturi is only in Alice's head.
The Vampire Diaries has a much more satisfying ending. Fans loved that Elena came back and that Elena and Damon get married. Elena lives a happy life and after passing away because she's older, she sees her family members in heaven.
While the Cullens had a better family dynamic than what we saw of Elena's, there is something to be said about the tension between the Salvatore brothers. Edward, Jasper and Emmett never really had any chemistry between them. While Damon and Stefan couldn't be more different from each other, their story was ultimately more entertaining.
