Benefits

• Consensus-based when voters are honest—tends to elect a compromise candidate as opposed to a polarizing candidate when voters vote honestly as opposed to strategically.
• Fails safe—unlike some consensus voting methods, approval voting can cope with the presence of high amounts of strategic voting. As the amount of strategic voting rises, approval voting moves away from consensus and become more and more equivalent to a plurality vote.

See example scenarios

Disadvantages

• Makes strategic voting so easy that it blurs the line between strategic voting and honest voting. Members who may not have been inclined to vote dishonestly under systems like Condorcet and Borda count may do so under approval voting.
• In the face of very large amounts of strategic voting, all benefits of a consensus-based voting method are lost and approval voting becomes equivalent to a plurality vote, which is worse than exhuastive ballot or instant runoff.

See example scenarios

Recommended when

• You want a consensus voting method but your members are sometimes likely to vote strategically.

Not recommended when

• You want a majoritarian voting method.
• You want a consensus voting method and your members can largely be trusted not to vote strategically.
• Your members are likely to almost always vote strategically.