It’s practically the same, but they do have their different behaviors depending on some factors. For example, you may have modifiers on your object that are dependent on the scale and when you scale up in object mode and apply the scale, the modifiers may vary.
If you scale in edit mode, the location of your origin point might change and if you have modifiers like the mirror modifier which is dependent on the origin point, then it may alter the result of the mirror modifier.
So it depends on a case by case basis, there is no wrong answer, you can scale depending on your situation.
