A few considerations that'd weigh in favor of STR over LTR if a recession (omitting against):1) reliability of paid-in-advance STR guests, rather than waiting & hoping for monthly rent2) if rent increases stall, the outperformance of STRs to LTRs becomes more stark3) if people are out of work and are not disincentivized to take whatever work's available, may become easier to find cleaners for more regular unit turnover between STR guests

Nothing outperforms a good leveraged RE deal on a risk-adjusted basis, but those deals are harder to find these days like you said. 

Judging by past performance of my other units, I was confident that a luxury finished lakeview home in this area would outperform comparable 4/4s in the greater Branson area.

Condos have actually outperformed the overall home market since 2000!

The rent and value appreciation in So-Cal will drastically outperform OOS rentals if you can figure out how to buy a successful house hack in So-Cal.

Often times, investors find that their passive DST investments out-perform their former actively managed properties.

Ongoing, but outperforming our goals.

The self manage in FL outperforms the manager in AZ, full disclosure the FL property was a STR when we bought it, so we did inherit some clientele.

We see syndications out-perform our client's self-owned rental properties. 

In IA I have outperformed CA, MN, WI, OH, IL, ND, that's all just off top of the head.