I RARELY use the carboy, the disadvantages being:
In the interest of allowing people to make an informed decision, I feel someone should point out the
advantages of glass carboys as a counterpoint:
* You can see the state of the beer
* Less oxygen permeability
* Less head space
* Less prone to scratching and harboring problematic bacteria
* Generally more easily found second-hand
As for the disadvantages:
It's big
Bigger than a bucket of similar volume?
It's bulky
That's different from "big?"
*It's heavy (esp. with 5 gal. beer in it, even with the nylon carrying strap that you pray doesn't give out as you're carrying it)
Only heavier than a bucket by a pound or two. I carry my carboys in a milk crate.
*It's a pain to clean
If you clean them right after use, before stuff has a chance to dry on and harden, they're trivially easy to clean. After emptying a carboy of beer, I pour in a couple quarts of warm water, swirl it around, and dump it to get out most of the remaining yeast and trub. Then I fill the carboy to the brim with a warm Oxy/PBW solution, cap it with foil (to limit evaporation) and leave it overnight. The next day, I dump it out and rinse it twice, then sanitize it and cap it with a fresh, sanitized foil cap. It's completely clean, and ready to be used again.
*It's slippery/dangerous when wet
I wear leather gloves when handling my carboy during cleaning, and use milk crates and BrewHauler straps when transporting them otherwise.
*Being glass, it's potentially dangerous even when dry
So don't drop it.
*You have to make sure to either cover it or keep it out of the light
How much sunlight makes it into your fermentation chamber?
*If the airlock gets plugged, the glass can explode
Same with a bucket. If you're not standing next to them when it happens, what's the difference? Either way, you've got a mess. Keep your fermentation temperatures under control and use a blowoff tube.
*If the glass is exposed to thermal shock, the bottom can fall off
So don't do that.