Query performance - 'Left join is null' vs 'Not exists select' - mariadb

Question

I have a question about a query that I want to execute, but I dont know what is the best qua performance. I need to get all the words exclude the words that have a relation with the table wordfilter.
The output of the queries is right, but maybe there is a better solution for this. I have almost none knowledge about query plans, I'm trying to understand it now.
SELECT CONCAT(SPACE(1), UCASE(stocknews.word.word), SPACE(1)) AS word, stocknews.word.language
FROM stocknews.word
WHERE NOT EXISTS (SELECT word_id FROM stocknews.wordfilter WHERE stocknews.word.id = word_id)
AND user_id = 1
+----+--------------+------------+-------+---------------+---------+---------+-------+------+-------------+
| id | select_type | table | type | possible_keys | key | key_len | ref | rows | extra |
+----+--------------+------------+-------+---------------+---------+---------+-------+------+-------------+
| 1 | PRIMARY | word | ref | user_id | user_id | 4 | const | 843 | Using where |
| 2 | MATERIALIZED | wordfilter | index | PRIMARY | PRIMARY | 756 | | 16 | Using index |
+----+--------------+------------+-------+---------------+---------+---------+-------+------+-------------+
Against
SELECT CONCAT(SPACE(1), UCASE(stocknews.word.word), SPACE(1)) AS word, stocknews.word.language
FROM stocknews.word
LEFT JOIN stocknews.wordfilter ON stocknews.word.id = stocknews.wordfilter.word_id
WHERE stocknews.wordfilter.word_id IS NULL AND user_id = 1
+----+-------------+------------+------+---------------+---------+---------+---------+------+--------------------------------------+
| id | select_type | table | type | possible_keys | key | key_len | ref | rows | extra |
+----+-------------+------------+------+---------------+---------+---------+---------+------+--------------------------------------+
| 1 | SIMPLE | word | ref | user_id | user_id | 4 | const | 843 | |
| 1 | SIMPLE | wordfilter | ref | PRIMARY | PRIMARY | 4 | word.id | 1 | Using where; Using index; Not exists |
+----+-------------+------------+------+---------------+---------+---------+---------+------+--------------------------------------+
Any help is welcome! An explanation would be nice.
Edit:
For query 1:
+----------------------------+-------+
| Variable_name | Value |
+----------------------------+-------+
| Handler_commit | 1 |
| Handler_delete | 0 |
| Handler_discover | 0 |
| Handler_external_lock | 0 |
| Handler_icp_attempts | 0 |
| Handler_icp_match | 0 |
| Handler_mrr_init | 0 |
| Handler_mrr_key_refills | 0 |
| Handler_mrr_rowid_refills | 0 |
| Handler_prepare | 0 |
| Handler_read_first | 1 |
| Handler_read_key | 1044 |
| Handler_read_last | 0 |
| Handler_read_next | 859 |
| Handler_read_prev | 0 |
| Handler_read_rnd | 0 |
| Handler_read_rnd_deleted | 0 |
| Handler_read_rnd_next | 0 |
| Handler_rollback | 0 |
| Handler_savepoint | 0 |
| Handler_savepoint_rollback | 0 |
| Handler_tmp_update | 0 |
| Handler_tmp_write | 215 |
| Handler_update | 0 |
| Handler_write | 0 |
+----------------------------+-------+
25 rows in set (0.00 sec)
For query 2:
+----------------------------+-------+
| Variable_name | Value |
+----------------------------+-------+
| Handler_commit | 1 |
| Handler_delete | 0 |
| Handler_discover | 0 |
| Handler_external_lock | 0 |
| Handler_icp_attempts | 0 |
| Handler_icp_match | 0 |
| Handler_mrr_init | 0 |
| Handler_mrr_key_refills | 0 |
| Handler_mrr_rowid_refills | 0 |
| Handler_prepare | 0 |
| Handler_read_first | 0 |
| Handler_read_key | 844 |
| Handler_read_last | 0 |
| Handler_read_next | 843 |
| Handler_read_prev | 0 |
| Handler_read_rnd | 0 |
| Handler_read_rnd_deleted | 0 |
| Handler_read_rnd_next | 0 |
| Handler_rollback | 0 |
| Handler_savepoint | 0 |
| Handler_savepoint_rollback | 0 |
| Handler_tmp_update | 0 |
| Handler_tmp_write | 0 |
| Handler_update | 0 |
| Handler_write | 0 |
+----------------------------+-------+

Answer 1

It seems to be a close race between the two formulations. (Some other example may show a clearer winner.)
From the HANDLER values: Query 1 did more read_keys, and some writing (which goes along with MATERIALIZED). The other numbers were about same. So, I conclude that Query 1 is slower -- although possibly not enough slower to make much difference.
I vote for LEFT JOIN as the better query pattern (in this case)