Hollywood Burbank has fewer destinations and usually costs a little more. People still choose it, and once you have used it you understand why.
You walk off the plane onto the tarmac
Burbank is small enough that arrival to kerb is often under ten minutes. At LAX, the same stretch — plane, concourse, baggage, horseshoe — regularly takes forty-five.
It is on the right side of the hill for half the city
From Studio City, Sherman Oaks, Pasadena, Glendale, Burbank itself or anywhere in the Valley, Burbank is fifteen to thirty minutes. LAX from the same places is an hour, sometimes ninety minutes. That is two hours of your day, each way.
Security lines are measured in minutes
Two terminals, a handful of gates. Even at peak, the queue is a queue rather than an event.
When LAX still wins
International flights, most long-haul domestic, and anything where the fare gap is large enough to matter. Burbank serves mostly west-coast and hub routes.
A rule of thumb: if you live north of the 10 and the flight exists out of Burbank, take it.