In my experience, absolutely not. I returned my pair since the noise cancelation was worse than the passive blocking of $30 true wireless earbuds from amazon. Ended up settling on the jabra elite 75t— also just passive blocking. Still not as good as qc35s for work but better than the AirPods pro along with better sound quality.

According to the ratings tests, the QC35 has much better NC with -25dB compared to -21dB for the Airpods Pro. The Bose 700 reached an even better -28dB.

When purely looking at rtings' measurements of noise isolation[0] the qc35ii is better, especially in the lows bass and the highs. They provide an option to listen to the difference, but this only gives you a clue as the sound will be colored by your listening device.

[0]: https://www.rtings.com/headphones/tools/compare/bose-quietco...

I had both (a gift I didn't ask for) and prefer the QC35s for NC and regular Airpods for casual on-the-go use.

Airpod Pros had worse noise cancelling but slightly better sound quality (clearer mids/highs, less bass). I think this is very subjective and depends on the situation and type of noise you're looking to block out.

If I could only own one pair of headphones I have to admit that the Airpod Pros would be hard to beat, as ridiculous as the pricetag seems.

I have both. The AirPods have better NC because they have both active and passive NC. I think the active NC is better too.

The QC35s are more comfortable however.

The Apple Store sells both and will let you compare the two models if you ask nicely (with new/clean AirPods). I found AirPods have noticeably better noise cancellation (for me) than the QC35s, but YMMV. Subtle but better. It's hard to say if my impression was due to better passive noise isolation or improved active noise cancellation (does the QC35 have an error-correction microphone downstream?). One thing that is absolutely true is that the QC35s do not work as well mechanically for those of us who wear eyeglasses: the cushions can't seal around the temple pieces of the frames, so some sound will always leak under the eyeglasses. For that reason alone—even if the AirPods have equivalent noise cancellation tech—the AirPods can work better for people with glasses as long as the tips seal properly. My wife, an eyeglass wearer with long hair, also found the AirPods more effective at reducing noise when we tried them both at the Apple Store. I certainly find them effective for commuter rail travel.

As an aside, one slightly annoying usability issue with the AirPods is that in comparison to the QC35 they behave differently when part of a multi-output audio device under MacOS. My wife and I often watch video using two pairs of bluetooth headphones paired and synced to the same Macbook Pro[1,2]. It's great for late-night movies in city apartments. Using the QC35s and her headphones, the aggregate device remains selected when the QC35s are paused or turned off (meaning, she can still listen if I go out of range or turn off my headphones). With the AirPods, if I take one out of my ear (to scratch an itch, say), the AirPods suddenly become the only audio output device when I put it back in, and the second pair of headphones goes silent. A small annoyance, but curious.

1. Set up your own bluetooth audio "splitter" to allow multiple people to listen togther: https://support.apple.com/guide/audio-midi-setup/play-audio-...

2. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202000

FWIW, I think my in-ear, wired QC20s have much better noise cancellation than the AirPods Pros.