Hootie was HUGE when that first album came out. But the sophomore album didn't come close to measuring up to the first's success. Rucker, however, has shown longevity as a solo country act with multiple number one singles over the last decade or so. I can look up details for comparison later this morning.
Ok, so Hootie's
Cracked Rear View album spent 8 total weeks at #1 (making five separate trips to the top spot) and 55 weeks in the top 10 on the Billboard 200 Albums chart in 1995. It spun off five singles: "Hold My Hand" reached #10 on the Billboard Hot 100; "Let Her Cry" #9; "Only Wanna Be With You" #6; "Time" #14; and Drowning, which did not chart on the Hot 100, but reached #21 on the US Rock songs chart. The album is currently certified 2x diamond for 21 million copies sold (diamond certification = 10,000,000 copies). It sold 10.5 million copies just in 1995.
Hootie's sophomore album,
Fairweather Johnson, also made it to #1 in 1996 (I could not locate how many weeks it stayed there online). It was certified 3x platinum for sales in excess of 3,000,000 copies. Three singles came from this album: "Old Man & Me" which made it to #13 on the Hot 100; "Tucker's Town" #38; and "Sad Caper" which did not chart.
Hootie released just seven more singles over the course of their career (including one from their most recent release in 2019) that did not chart on the Hot 100, but six did make the US Adult Contemporary chart.
Darius Rucker released a country album,
Back To Then, in 2002 that landed with a thud. It never charted country and peaked at #127 on the Billboard 200. Two singles were released, but did not chart. Cut to 2008 when
Learn To Live is released and becomes the first in a streak of FOUR consecutive #1s on the Country Albums chart (his latest peaked at #2). He has accumulated eight #1 singles on the Country Airplay chart included with eleven total top tens. His song, "Wagon Wheel," was one of those #1s, also peaking at #15 on the Hot 100 and won a 2013 Grammy for Country Solo Performance.
So, I'd give the career longevity edge to Rucker's solo work. Hootie had the bigger immediate splash, with one of the biggest selling albums of all-time in the US, but fizzled with the follow-up. Rucker has been going strong at country radio for twelve years now. I don't think anyone would have guessed that he'd be such a country genre mainstay back in 1995.