An insert heats different than a stove, the two are hardly comparible in my opinion.
If you want the heat in other rooms, extremeties, other floors, etc. besides the room with the unit, an insert is the wiser choice. Inserts have much larger blowers than stoves, and force huge amounts of air through channels that wrap around the unit, forcing it to be super heated before escaping. That heat doesn't stick around the room with the insert it wants to spread around the floor. Inserts make a ton of hot air, if you’ve seen a pellet stove in action (or ask someone who has one how they heat), an insert heats similarly. The good they do wonders for heating a houses extremeties and keeping the heat even, the bad they don't heat the room they're in as fast, as well, or as hot as a stove. Since an insert heats the "floor" of the house and not the room it's in (unless you can close it off) if you come home to a house that's say 62F and want it 68F you have to wait until the insert brings the entire floor up to 68F which can take a few hours. Which, brings us to a stove. It produces some convection & some radiant energy. The radiant heat is a form of light, can only be used in the room with the stove. If you're familiar with walking into a house heated with a wood stove and being blown back from the heat that's the combined hit of the convection & radiant heat. Stoves quickly heat the room & objects in said room that they're in, heat them to warmer temps, but don't do as well at heating the extremeties like an insert and, have a higher chance of overheating the room they're in while trying to warm other parts of ones house. So, if you want a "hot" room, or a room that quickly warms up when you come home to a cold house a stove would be the wiser choice.
So it depends on what you want, I got very frustrated with my stove overheating the area around it as I wanted the heat in other parts of my house and a stove wasn't as capable for that task. I couldn't believe how nice and fast my insert heats other rooms etc. of my house, and how even so an insert is for me. My in-laws are elder people and they like to be in 80F+
For them to do that with an insert would be impractical they'd have to heat the entire floor to 80F and take a while hence they got a stove and couldn't be happier. They sit around the stove where they heat the room it's in above 80F+ and the rest of their house is low 70's and that's the way they love it, and exactly that scenario I hated about my stove. So, to each their own.
So, in summary if you want the heat spread around the house and its extremeties an insert is probably a wiser choice. If you want a hot room, or a room that heats quickly a stove is a better choice. You can cook on a stove, an insert almost always not. Some people like how a stove heats without power, an insert without power is like a sailboat without much wind. It starts to really be noticeable after 18+ hours w/out power... which has happened to me once in 25 years. Had I got a stove based on power availability I'd have had that stove replaced before ever utilizing its ability to heat w/out power so don't recommend the power issue be part of the consideration unless you frequently do lose power for extended periods of time. Another, an inserts blowers sound like an AC on medium when on high setting and that bothers some. You can turn them down, and they'll sound like a whisper but some people rather not have any sound and in that case a stove would be a wiser choice.
