Is beta-alanine or creatine better for recovering from work-outs?

This kind of depends on what you mean by "recovering" from workouts. There is evidence to suggest that the "tear down to build up" theory doesn't hold water.

Creatine seems to maximize anabolic muscle metabolism and therefore builds muscle. If muscle is what you are after, then go for it.

Beta-alanine also helps build muscle, but has a side effect of paraesthesia, (a form of neurogenic pain) with high doses and also tends to be readily excreted in high doses.

With both substances, the form is quite important. Although the synthesis of urea was the death knell to vitalist thinking in the Western medical community many doctors, particularly those influenced by the drug manufacturers, adopted the extreme point of view that synthetics function identically as the original substances.

Many women are finding this NOT to be the case and are finding relief from perimenopausal symptoms using bioidentical hormones rather than the synthetics foisted on them by male doctors in cahoots with corporate synthetic substance pushers.

You may or may not know that synthetic vitamin E blocks the beneficial effects of natural vitamin E. So when you go to the store get "mixed alpha tocopherols" and not "tocopherol acetate." The latter is easier to synthesize and has been touted as a suitable replacement...BUT IT ISN'T.

(Heck. I remember the days when LSD-25 maleate was all you could get and it was mellow felt like reality itself was warping and having some was not yet a federal offense. You had to keep it in the fridge or it would go bad. Then along came LSD-25 tartrate which kept better but gave a jagged trip. No wonder the kids call it "fry.") But I digress...

Verdict: I would tend to go with creatine over beta-alinine for your purposes simply because of the high-dose side-effects. However, I would say that the form of the substance my turn out to be more important than which actual substance, so as asked, I am unable to return a solid verdict.