Depends. I think the main difference between single coil and humbuckers (besides the fact that humbuckers are hum cancelling) is output. How much output you want your pickups to have – the more you have the easier it is to drive your amp but be careful because as you increase the midrange/output of a pickup, you will also lose the highs/lows so you have to find a good middle ground.
In general here are the outputs of different pickups from lowest to highest:
—single coils—
Charlie Christian pickup (lowest) – only used as a custom order these days for some pickups companies like Seymour Duncan
Rickenbacker “toaster” pickups – only used on Rickenbacker guitars
HiLoTron – only used on some Gretsch models
Fender single coil – used on Telecasters and Stratocasters and their copies
“Lipstick” pickups – used mostly on Danelectros
Tri-sonic pickups – a unique design only used by Burns and famously by Brian May of Queen
Vistatone – only used by Supro guitars
Gold Foil pickups – used by mostly Supro/Teisco
Dynasonic/DeArmond – used mostly by Gretsch
P90 (staple) – used by early Gibson models
Jazzmaster – only used by Fender Jazzmasters
Magnetic Field Design – used only by G&L
P90 (dogear/soapbar) – used by Gibson
—humbucker—
mini humbucker – used mostly by Guild/Gibson
Filtertron – used by Gretsch
Stacked “noiseless” single coil – some pickup makers like Joe Barden, Lace Sensor, Fender and Kinman make these pickups to create a single coil sized pickup with hum cancelling
Wide Range Humbucker – used by ’72 Telecaster Deluxes and 70s Fender guitars
PAF – most Gibson models and Les Paul/SG type guitars use these
Active humbuckers (highest output) – ESP and some other brands like Charvel/Jackson may use these humbuckers and they are usually incredibly high output.
