Characters
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I can't be the only person noticing the similar character designs...
The most obvious similarity between the two is the characters. While Blue Exorcist's cast might not be as large as Bleach's (but then again whose is?) there is some unmistakable overlap.
Ichigo vs Rin-This is the most obvious comparison. Both are hotheads who don't always think things through. Both tend to get in fights and in trouble. Both mean well and would do anything to protect the people they care about. If I had to chose between the two I'd say Rin is the better character. He just gets a much better introduction. With Rin we get the tragic, albeit somewhat cliched story of revenge. Satan kills his father through Rin's own foolishness and Rin vows revenge. And this is made all the more effective because before and even after he dies we get to see examples of why father fujimoto is such an awesome guy. Ichigo eventually gets a tragic backstory about the death of his mother but it's not as developed as much. Again I like both characters but Rin is just slightly better developed.
Shura vs the countless bleach fanservice characters-I'd have to say Shura loses this one. Whenever I see her character all I can think about his how she's only her to the teenage boys reading the manga. At least some of the fan service characters in Bleach (Yuirichi) actually are interesting.
Shiemi vs Orihime- Honestly I can't stand either of them. They're both useless and only there to serve as love interests for the main characters.
Everybody else-I can't help but feel that Blue Exorcist is the superior of the two. Bleach just has waaaay to many characters. There's not enough time to develop most of them so they're essentially window dressing. Blue Exorcist on the other hand has focus entirely on developing it's smaller but better rounded cast of characters. Point to Blue Exoricst
Story
This is a bit more tricky not only because the similarities here are a bit more subtle but also because they both have their strengths and their weaknesses. So they both start off the same, our stubborn and rough around the edges protagonists find out about a whole other world beyond the one they've known their whole life. Namely some monsters (hollows and demons) that are unseen to most people pose a threat to their world and both characters, along with their friends take up the fight against these creatures. Now what do I like about each. Well with Bleach I do find the world very interesting, the hollows, soul reapers, and soul society are all very interesting concepts. I also enjoyed the first story arc were the heroes have to rescue Rukia. We get introduced to this interesting world and we're invested in Inchigo's quest because in the short time we've seen Rukia we've come to like her character so we want to see her saved. The problem is that after a fantastic first arc the story begins to collapse under it's own weight. There's too many characters, too much stuff going on. If the writer was smart the next couple of story arcs would have dealt with developing each of the many soul reapers introduced and showing us a bit more about how the soul society works. Instead we get another kidnapping story (this time it's Orihime) and even more underdeveloped characters dumped on us. And from there the story continues to devolve into mindless action. It's pretty upsetting actually because the first arc is so solid and is a pretty good set up. The whole thing just feels like a lot of wasted potential. Blue Exorcist has been more consistent in it's storytelling and while it's never had an arc quite on par with the rescue Rukia arc of Bleach, it's never quite let me down in the same way either. It knows what it wants to be and how to go about it. Blue Exorcist is a lot more consistent in tone and pacing and again, for me at least ultimately is the superior of the two.
Action
But these are both Shonen so what's the action like? Well with Bleach we have a lot of really creative fights involving the different abilities of each zanpakuto (the soul reaper's swords) that make for really enjoyable fight scenes. The way the manga isn't afraid to have blood spew from every wound also helps to make the fights feel more intense, they carry weight and feel real. It's clear a lot of thought goes into every fight scene.
Blue Exorcist has decent fights too, but none are quite on par with Bleach's. Blue Exorcist seems more involved with story telling and character development, which while I appreciate this, it also means the fight scenes don't get the same focus as those in Bleach. Point for Bleach.
Art
How does each manga look? Well Bleach certainly has more interesting character designs. In fact there some of my favorite out of any anime I've watched. Each character is distinct and unique but at the same time that's about it. Blue Exorcist has decent character designs as well, and beautiful detailed backgrounds. Seriously I love the backgrounds in this manga. I also appreciate all the extras and effort that clearly goes into making the manga volumes really nice. Something not nearly as evident in the bleach volumes.
So again I'd say Blue Exorcist wins this one.
Conclusion
So if Blue Exorcist is clearly the superior of the two why is Bleach so much more popular? Well I can only speculate but I think there's several reasons why.
1. Bleach came first. It beat Blue Exorcist to the punch by almost ten years.
2. Anime. Bleach had a 366 episode run. That's a long time. A long time of new episodes and new twists and new things for people to discuss Blue Exorcist only got 25 episodes and the later half of the show didn't even follow the manga. The show came and went and so the conversation didn't last as long. The shitty second half probably didn't help either.
3. Bleach is more of a shonen than Blue Exorcist. Even though I think Bleach's cast is more of a problem than an asset as far as character development goes that massive cast means there's plenty for fans to talk about. Everyone can have their own favorite, fans can talk about which character they think would win in a fight, and everyone can have their own head canons. It caters to fan speculation. There's also the better fight scenes to take into consideration. Most people come to a shonen for the fight scenes and Bleach does do that element at least better.
Again this is all just my opinion but in my mind Blue Exorcist is the better of the two. I'm a fan of both but Bleach is definitely the more flawed story.
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