Each to their own. I’ve played both and I found elite to be very “space truck driver…ey”. Personally, I want to spend my time exploring solar systems and not decelerating to space stations. NMS also has rich and meaningful planetary exploration and not a hollow imitation afterthought.
Due to the depth of NMS, I wouldn’t even put them as comparable. One is an award winning best seller that’s having yet another huge free update just to make the fans happy, the other is free on playstation plus because no one will buy it.