  The Fourier-Galerkin method (in short FFTH) has gained popularity in
numerical homogenisation because it can treat problems with a huge number of
degrees of freedom. Because the method incorporates the fast Fourier transform
(FFT) in the linear solver, it is believed to provide an improvement in
computational and memory requirements compared to the conventional finite
element method (FEM). Here, we systematically compare these two methods using
the energetic norm of local fields, which has the clear physical interpretation
as being the error in the homogenised properties. This enables the comparison
of memory and computational requirements at the same level of approximation
accuracy. We show that the methods' effectiveness relies on the smoothness
(regularity) of the solution and thus on the material coefficients. Thanks to
its approximation properties, FEM outperforms FFTH for problems with jumps in
material coefficients, while ambivalent results are observed for the case that
the material coefficients vary continuously in space. FFTH profits from a good
conditioning of the linear system, independent of the number of degrees of
freedom, but generally needs more degrees of freedom to reach the same
approximation accuracy. More studies are needed for other FFT-based schemes,
non-linear problems, and dual problems (which require special treatment in FEM
but not in FFTH).
