Which is better a PESA or AESA?

Passive Electronically Scanned Array (PESA) and the Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA)

are basically same in technology and principles of operation , both systems are capable of steer its
beam Electronically through utilization of Phase Shifter hence it could be made in fully solid state
configuration where no moving parts required (like APG-77 Radar on F-22 or Zhuk-AE Radar
onboard MiG-35)

they're only differs in source of Radio Frequency (RF) source

The AESA uses multiple numbers of Radiating Elements where each of them have their own
Transmitter and Receiver Module, making the Antenna where those modules located become
"active" because it can Radiate by itself

While the PESA system uses common RF source that usually found in conventional Radar like
Klystrons, Magnetrons and Travelling Wave Tubes (this one especially, most common in Airborne
Application like Fighter Radar).

In Terms of Advantages the AESA system is typically better than PESA because of following factors :

1.because the Antenna Elements contain its own Transmitter and Receiver modules and located
Right behind the Radiator, it would have lower or even No accidental loss , unlike her PESA sister
which still require a connection to be made between its RF source to Radiating elements , incidental
loss may occur.

2. High fault tolerance, failure of some modules will not hamper the operation of Radar (typical
AESA Radar may contain 100++ Elements) however the entire device would fail if the failure occurs
in 10% of total module counts.

3.No Single Point Failure , since basically each modules in active Version contains its own
transmitter and Receiver modules, the passive device however since it still use single Transmitter
device like Traveling Wave tube , failure of the transmitter may hamper the RADAR operations

Answers by :Xenostrike 06 a.k.a Stealthflanker an Illegally Banned member from Electrosphere

EDIT- Bit improvements and adding single point failure in previous answer

Just to help point the above answer at the questions Passive systems have a single point of failure
in its transmit devices (Travelling Wave Tubes,Wave Guides, Microstrips and Power Dividers as well
as Antenna Feed System) . Active antenna do not have a single point of failure and a meant to
degrades performance gracefully except probably malfunctions in its tapering systems or when the
beam is steered in very high deflection angle which will reduce antenna effective Area, increase
beamwidth hence reducing gain an compromise detection range. Active versions are much more
flexible as phase can be varied in each or a groups of Radiating elements to create different
waveforms or beamshapes .