Either one of them is a good choice. Essentially it doesnt matter which drum machine you use. There is no ‘best’ . Its what you do with it that counts.
AR provides more functions than I needed, it’s deep and sound great. But in the end I opted for the TR8S, which I got for a third of the ARs price and it does everything I need with ease. 
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For immediacy Roland. For programming and depth, Rytm.
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Not a bad choice at all. TR8S has tons of staying power (more than the TR8 for sure). I just felt really burned by Roland with the TR8. They suggested a lot and promised a lot. They even (as I mentioned before) specifically asked for TR8 requests and never delivered… Anything… Not looking to go back to that.
With that said, TR8S looks dope. Now make some sweet tracks!
Re: the performance aspect of these machines
It depends on what you mean by performance. IMO, the TR-8s wins for full improvisation, given the amount of hands-on controls you have access to. The setup you need to do in advance is primarily choosing the sounds of your kit. Once you’re jamming live, it’s super immediate to change your patterns & tweak parameters on the fly. If you’re also a sucker for the classic Roland sounds, then it’s hard to go wrong here.
For more of a “pre-prepared” live performance, I would say go for the Rytm. The scenes & performances are really powerful here, and allow you to change several parameters at once. This gives you a lot more flexibility to change the sound of your whole pattern in several different ways, and create many different variations on a theme. IMO this allows you to create a lot more variety out of one pattern than is possible with the TR-8s. The problem here is you need to put in the work in advance, and carefully create the scene & performance parameter settings to facilitate a live performance.
The learning curve of each machine is also fairly different. If you’re familiar with Elektron then I’ve found Rytm to be one of the easier instruments to pick up, but it’s still a lot more complex to use than the TR-8s in my opinion.
So to summarize:
- TR-8s if you want immediate pick-up and play & pure live improvisation
- Rytm if you want more flexibility and capabilities in your live performance, but you have to be willing to put in the prep work
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Have been using samples in DAW or in DT so far
Recently got a second hand TR-8 (very cheap) as I wanted a “reference” kick. Not looking back: every time I try otherwise, I am coming back to TR-8.
Effects wise: some hardware has decent FX, some other has less 
. I like to use a DD7 on the TR-8.
I tend to grab various pieces of hardware/software to build my drums. Like building my hats and percs on DT. Like kick, clap and toms on TR-8 (not so much high tom). One machine never made it for me. Just an observation
TR-8=Simple. Effective.
Can’t speak of AR though.
This is the only drawback I currently see. Being able to put a bunch of parameters on one knob with unique behaviour. That’s the power of elektron.
They did deliver the TR8-S. Im sure that TR-8 requests had a whole lot to do with that.
Its kind of funny, I bought the TR-8 and they released the TR8-S 3 months later…
Roland have some integrity.