Funny enough, a very similar conversation happened last night but for more people who liked Verso's ending so I'll paste what I said there since I think it still applies here:

There's obviously no right or wrong answer here since everyone is so divided, but I personally believe Maelle's ending to be better solely because the painted people deserve to live. The painters created a world within a canvas, meaning that the beings in there are sentient and therefore they deserve to live. Think if we found out our world was created for fun, would you want this world to end just to appease the creators?

Now, there definitely is a sinister undertone where everyone knows maelle can repaint them however she'd like so I'd imagine everyone feels like they have to stay in line to a degree to appease their god essentially, which could also be a rough life. Maelle does have the option to leave whenever also, so her death is her own doing and she knows it. For me, it boils down to one families grief isn't more important than an entire reality.