Yes BAPI is efficient than BDC.

The BAPI and BDC are actually meant for different pruposes.
BAPI are developed for webservices in which the calling
application can directly call the BAPI and carry out the
required operations, where as in BDC we have to write a
code and then we need to get the data in SAP system in a
perticular format and validate the same and then carry out
the updation or other operations, in case of BAPI is a
business object repository object which can be called from
any application. where as for BDC program we need to get
the input file and execute it manually or as a batch job.
Many of us face probelms in upgradation projects for BDC
programs as the screen sequance of some other settings gets
changed so we need to redo the coding(recording) of BDC and
for some transactions its not possible to record as well
such a enjoy transactions, in these cases BAPI is a very
good and proper alternative.