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It depends on what your body can handle and what you're looking for. Coffee wakes you up faster but then you crash, whereas matcha is smoother and the caffeine is absorbed differently, so it doesn't leave you wrecked two hours later. If you're sensitive to caffeine or it wakes you up too early, matcha is the better option; if you need a strong kick the moment you open your eyes, coffee has no rival. What I'd do is try both for a few days and see which one makes you feel better throughout the morning.
What a lot of people overlook is that you can mix both: a little coffee with matcha gives you the best of both worlds, the quick energy from coffee with the smoothness of matcha, and often the crash is way less harsh. If what matters to you is not feeling like you've been through the wringer by mid-morning, this combo works pretty well, though obviously you'll have more caffeine total so it's not an everyday thing if you're sensitive to it.
Matcha has a reputation for being "smooth," but the reality is that caffeine is still caffeine - what changes is the absorption rate, so you don't escape the crash if you drink a lot of it. For the morning it really depends on whether you prefer a quick hit or something more sustained, but neither one is objectively better than the other.
Matcha wins if what's bugging you is that energy crash mid-morning - caffeine releases more slowly in your body, so you hold up better until lunch without feeling like you're tanking. But here's what nobody mentions: if you mix matcha with a little fresh lemon juice, the vitamin C helps your body absorb both the caffeine and the L-theanine (that compound that keeps you chill) better, so the energy is cleaner and without the anxiety. Plain coffee is faster, yeah, but if what you're after is stability throughout the morning, matcha with lemon is your move.
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