Comment by spauldo

If you have to use an explicit stack, you're still doing recursion. Useful if you're implementing the Ackermann function in FORTRAN 77, I suppose. Unless you're worried about running out of stack space, it's generally easier to reason about if you just use regular recursion.

That only applies for non-primitive recursive functions, though. Most people rarely encounter those. For primitive recursive functions, it's all down to the nature of the function and what's idiomatic for your language. If you're using Scheme, for example, recursion is the name of the game.