I’m new and learning and making a simple game, and wondering what is more demanding, because I can’t animate yet!
if your just starting and cant animate then theres really no question here, the more performant one is the one that you can actually make. also when your just starting out i wouldnt worry too much about whats more demanding, your not going to be selling your game to the mass market and your likely to have something else that takes up way more performance anyway. just learn how to make things and script things then when your more experienced and going to make a larger project then you can worry about the performance of every little thing. in the end i would say make both then profile how each affects your performance.
Great answer that is very true thanks very much! 
If you end up needing 1,000 spinning barrels, I would look into learning about Instanced Static Meshes after you’ve learned the basics of how to make them spin or animate.