Let me start by saying that my information is outdated and based solely on my memory from several years ago. But, I think sharing my experiences will help, since I've used both.
My family used Touring Plans in August 2010 in WDW and it was horrible. My dad did all the planning for that trip, and he is generally pretty good at it, but I think he relied too heavily on the printed plans and didn't think about it himself. After the first day, I took each plan and re-did the night before we went to each park, just based on my own common sense (and I hadn't even been to the parks for over 10 years- I just put some thought into it based on how popular I thought each ride would be), and we were much happier. The problem we had with the touring plans was that we are fast walkers without children or old people, and so we were able to get to each attraction and ride it much faster than the plans said. I think I remember being done by 10:00 with everything that it had planned until noon. But we knew we couldn't just skip ahead because timing matters. I think that if my dad had thought about it, we probably could have made better plans, so this doesn't necessarily reflect on the quality of Touring Plans, but that's what happened for us. We had paid for the subscription, by the way; we were not using the free plans.
In August 2011, I used RideMax when I went to DL by myself. It was amazing! Though it was one of the most crowded times of the year, I didn't wait longer than 10 minutes for anything except the Explorer Canoes, and that was only 20 minutes. The catch is, I spent HOURS on the RideMax site (I think there's an app now, but I didn't have a smart phone at the time so I just did all my planning ahead of time and printed out my own itineraries). I tried several different permutations, compared many different scenarios, and I had several back-up plans. For example, I wanted to ride Star Tours twice, get a Star Tours FP (it's my favorite ride and the new version had just opened), ride Space Mountain and then ride Peter Pan. But if I got to Peter Pan and the line was too long, I had 3 other times during my trip that I knew I could ride it (and I only wanted to ride it once, so once I rode it I checked if off from 3 different places on my list). I had lists and lists of what I could ride at what times and what some alternatives were if certain things didn't work out. I used RideMax mostly just for the expertise of wait times for each day, but I made my own itineraries. If I remember correctly, there were some maps, too, such as for World of Color areas, and they were really helpful.
The short answer is, it really depends how much you're willing to put into it. I can't give you an answer for which is better, because I think either can work as long as you use them for what they're good for and don't depend on them heavily without doing your own research. My family's results varied so much because my dad planned the wdw trip and I planned my DL trip. But personally, I was much happier with RideMax. I'm not using any paid service for my upcoming wdw trip, but if I was, I would choose RideMax.
