I had the same dilemma. I went with the Burris because it was on sale at the time but I think I would have liked it better anyway. I think the venom had more brightness settings and more buttons. Like you could move the brightness up and down. On the Burris there are only 4 settings auto, high, med, and low and they are cycled with one button. I thought more buttons would be better but I actually like the one button. I typically just set in on auto which is one click, then to turn off its 3 more clicks. Simple is sometimes the best. The rain guard is pretty handy too. Its on my turkey gun and I shoot 3.5" turkey loads so it will hold zero even under massive recoil.