Who do you think is the better side kick/best friend?

Sam never once deserts Frodo. Even when Frodo is at his lowest, during the long slog across Mordor, when the burden is at its greatest, Sam is always there for him. He even goes so far as carrying him when Frodo can’t walk any further. Compare and contrast that to Ron’s abandonments of Harry. I am not saying they go on for a while, and I am not saying they are massive betrayals, but on the whole Ron clearly abandons Harry far too often and far too easily.

 

You're comparing a character from an epic fantasy tale, where characters are exaggerated in this or that way and often black-or-white (Sam is the personification of loyalty, Aragorn is the archetypal noble exiled king, Gandalf is the wise old wizard, all three of them are pretty much all good with no blemishes) to a character from a YA series, which has more shades of grey. This thread is about as well-thought-out as a buzzfeed quizz.

 

ScottPress has hit the nail on the head, they're fundamentally different characters in different settings with different purposes.

For Ron, it's really simple. This thirteen year old boy with a mangled leg put himself between his friend and (someone he thought at the time) a murderer saying roughly, "If you want Harry, you have to go through me". Like Harry tells Ron after the pool, it's not that Dumbledore knew Ron was going leave but that he knew Ron would always come back.