I installed the CoCoHue app to control 19 hue lights and the integration works perfectly. I am taking the lights to the backyard, adding 12 Hue lights plus and five smart plugs. This would bring total of hue devices up to 36. I am considering installing Phillips smart plugs to leverage the existing Hue bridge's mesh network. The alternative is to establish a small Zwave mesh network of 10 plugs.
I live in a 2100 sqft tract home. The Hubitat hub and hue bridge are physically located in the garage which is 3 interior house walls and 70 feet away from the backyard where the new plugs will be installed.
Excluding future growth potential and cost which approach would “operate better” for power switching): 1) leverage the existing hue-based mesh network, or 2) build a 10 device Zwave mesh network.
Craig
Note: the definition of “operate better” is speed and accuracy in switching.
As you already have the hue network, continue with that. If you place a zwave network outside, then you'll have to make sure your hub can reach the first zwave device. It may require repeaters to ensure a stable connection.
If you were starting from scratch, I would've said zwave all the way as it is the cheaper option, but you're already invested in hue, stick with them
I agree with the above, though there are advantages and disadvantages to both. Z-Wave tends to have longer theoretical range, which may help for devices outside your house. Its frequency (a bit over or under 900 MHz, depending on region; 908.42 MHz in the US) also tends to be less crowded, which again can't hurt. However, you already have a lot of Hue devices, so that network probably has a pretty solid Zigbee mesh, which might be better despite the potential Z-Wave advantages here.
The other thing to consider is that Hue doesn't officially support more than 50 devices on the Bridge network--a limit you'd still be under with this addition and might already be aware of, but I'm mentioning because you mentioned possible additional future expansion. Z-Wave has a limit of around 232; Zigbee is actually much higher, but Hue limits this on their side due to resource constraints on the Bridge (some people do get by with adding a few more--I don't think it necessarily stops you, and it depends on how many other things you have going on: stored scenes, rules/schedules, etc.).
Either should be more or less as fast and accurate, assuming your mesh for either is healthy. (I do notice some Z-Wave sensors are slower to respond than Zigbee ones, but I think this just stems from the history of their design intentions, not the protocol itself.) If that's your only criterion, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend either--but again, especially for outdoors, would go with whichever network probably has the strongest mesh, which for you sounds like Hue.
A final thing to consider is that Hubitat doesn't officially support the Hue Plugs, but I see you're using my integration that does. If you ever decide to give up on custom code, Hubitat supports a variety of Z-Wave and Zigbee plugs natively (including these), but last I tried it wouldn't import them via the Bridge Integration. I'll do my best to help if mine stops working, but I suppose the distinction is worth mentioning in either case. 
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@bertabcd1234 Robert covered things very well. One more perk to the zigbee lights is zigbee group messaging where you can group the devices and 1 command turns all devices on/off where zwave would send an individual on/off per device which gives a popcorn effect.
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