Bring out the popcorn
No seriously, this has been asked a lot on here. Answers will vary from " save yer money, get an anchor yanker" ball to " you won't be without one, once you have tried one. " And then it will subdivide into windlass or drum type. Which will further subdivide into horizontal or vertical windlass, and freefall or power out drum. I've had a foot in every camp, using the anchor ball for a long time, but it only really worked well on centre consoles. Once I went to a cuddy things got harder, particularly if fishing by self. if you want a full run down on how i managed it, PM me.
So I then got a horizontal windless type, real brute of thing, maxwell HRC 6 FF but the anchor well wasn't quite deep enough for the amount of rope I needed. And if you buy a windlass type, you MUST use 8-stand plait nylon,sized correctly for the gypsy, or it will end in tears. Period. If you have plenty of fall under the deck the windlass is mounted on (width is useless, you need depth, I'd say 500mm ) they are a good thing, and take up a lot less space than a drum. And they will all have freefall. Freefall is good when you are trying to spot anchor in a strong wind or tide. They operate, on windlasses, by an adjustable clutch.
For my new boat, i couldn't really fit a horizontal windlass, and don't like verticals , so I went a drum.
For drums, you need space to mount it under the foredeck, and a surface strong enough to bolt it to. Reinforcing may be required. And rope capacity is always an issue if you need to anchor deep, bearing in mind you need at least 3 x the depth you intend to anchor in, plus some. You will likely need to go to Dyneema, in at 4mm or better 5mm diameter, and it is expensive. Just like the 8-strand plait you need on a windlass is expensive . You can use nylon double braid in its place, but you'll get more on with dyneema. And nylon double braid isn't cheap, the cheaper double braid is polypropelene, not as much stretch, degrades under shock loading. Use a heavier rope for the last 10 or 20 metres for chafing resistance.
Some drum winches have freefall, most dont. Reason being that the freefall setup on a drum is more prone to failure. OK, you Stressfree owners, flame away. Seen it happen enough to know it is an issue. Having manual feed out isn't as bad as I though it wuld be, I've anchored a lot in up to 40 metres in strong wind, and had no problems.
So, to sum it up
1) if you have plenty, at least 500mm ,of free vertical space under where you intend to mount the winch, you can consider using a windlass. If not, forget it. And don't try to re-use your old silver rope to save money, this is where windlass types get a bad name. Dumb cheap arse owners, not the winch, but you can't tell some people.
2) A good windlass is not much cheaper than a good drum.
3) The whole process is not cheap, budget over $2200, more if you need a professional involved in any way, including reinforcing.
4) People will doubtless send you a link for a " comparison test" on some of the drum winches sold on the australian market that seems to point to the Lonestar GX2 being far superior to anything else out there. There are a lot of issues with this test, just google it. Word was that Lonestar wouldn't participate if there were a few more of the readily available winches included, as they would then not look quite so good. Not saying they are a bad product, but there are alternatives.
HTH