I'm on the fence! Days to allocate to Amalfi Coast & Puglia

What time of year is your trip?

To be honest I don't think 3-4 days is enough for EITHER the Amalfi Coast or Puglia. Certainly it's possible but you will have to pick and choose which things you don't mind not seeing. What do you want to see in the Amalfi area? Positano, Amalfi, Ravello, Capri, Sorrento, Pasteum, Pompeii, Naples. If you only want to see Posoitano, Amalfi and Ravello then 3 or 4 days will be enough. Same for Puglia. We had 8 nights in Puglia (two bases - Lecce and Polignano) and didn't get to every thing we wanted to see. One night in Matera en route is OK. We had two nights which was better but if you leave Salerno early and get most of the afternoon and the next morning in Matera you will have time to get a good taste of it.

Here's my photos of the areas -Amalfi Coast - https://andiamo.zenfolio.com/p266655284
Puglia - https://andiamo.zenfolio.com/f274018858
Pasteum, Pompeii - https://andiamo.zenfolio.com/p941704494

You are cutting both areas short. Go to Puglia the whole time.

We will be traveling last week in April and first week of May. We don’t plan to do the ruins, as we saw the fabulous ones in Sicily. Thank you Isabel for the fabulous pictures! The pictures get me very excited. I guess I will take RS advice, we can always go back!

You'll just get a glimpse of both, so I'd consider splitting the difference and just staying in Baslicata! There is plenty more to discover in Matera environs other than the sassi. If that is not appealing, I would probably put the most time to the Salerno area and just do the night before the ferry in Bari and plan to come back to Puglia another time. You can see the Amalfi coast in four days but you need more if you have any interest in Pompeii, Naples, etc.

You can always go back. There is nothing inherently wrong with doing an "a taste of" type trip where you just sample areas, knowing that you are missing a lot. The only problem is that you spend (waste) time getting to places. So for example, if you spend the whole 8 days in the Amalfi region you spend it all seeing 'things' (or just relaxing) where as if you try to do both you 'waste' a day traveling between them. If you don't mind that, and don't tend to get frustrated not seeing things you may have read about that it turns out you don't have time for, then the 'taste of' trip can be fine.

I have also seen the major Greek ruins in Sicily and was still impressed with Pasteum. If you don't plan on seeing that, then you might want to consider basing in Sorento instead of Salerno. I just think Sorento is a lovely town itself. I've based there three times and been happy with it. Also Pompeii is nothing like places you've seen in Sicily. Still, while it's a 'major' site, nothing wrong with putting it off till another trip.

I wouldn't know how to split 7 full days between the Amalfi Coast and Puglia, either. The kicker is that--as already pointed out--they are both rather awkward to get to. When I'm tackling that kind of area, I try to allot enough time to it that I won't need to return to see major stuff I missed. In this case, since you're flying from Bari, I would spend all the time in Matera and Puglia. But I'm not a "sampler" sort of traveler--except when I'm buying chocolates.

I would stay on the amalfi coast area the entire time. As I have been to both areas

We have also spent time in both areas and I would go to Puglia the whole time.