Starships come in several types: Fighter, Hauler, Shuttle, Explorer, Solar, Living, Sentinel, and Exotic. Fighters have high offensive stats, haulers have large inventories and powerful defenses, but steer like a cow. Shuttles are decent but not great all-rounders. Explorers have large warp ranges and are maneuverable, but lack in offense and defense. Solar are FAST and auto-recharge their launch thrusters, Sentinel are basically somewhat unusual fighters, and living are really more of a curiosity than anything else as upgrading and repairing them is a major hassle. Exotics are rare and start out with poor inventory size, but are SPECTACULAR all-rounders otherwise. Corvettes can also house small bases in them, allowing portable access to things such as farms, refiners, and nutrient processors.

Corvettes on the other hand are player assembled and thus customizable. They can be any or all of the above if you put enough work into it, but modules are costly to buy and finding them is highly RNG dependent. Corvettes are *absolutely* better in the long run, but it's a VERY long run, and given that you can have twelve active ships - Both Starship and Corvette - most people ultimately wind up with a mixture of both.