Different genres. Starfield is mostly you running around on foot, having shootouts, and interacting with people and human-sized environments. The space combat is basically an elaborate mini-game.

Elite Dangerous is mostly about flying space ships around.

Personally, I liked Starfield, though I think that it's weaker than most prior Bethesda offerings. I stopped playing Elite Dangerous, though I have enjoyed some past space-combat-and-trading games, like Escape Velocity. Just never really hooked me. I didn't like the Elite Dangerous "faux online multiplayer" thing at all

multiplayer breaking immersion in crafted environments is one thing that I'm not a fan of, and unnecessarily adding that just seemed obnoxious to me. The cockpit UI felt like it was more-oriented towards VR use to me, which may be good if you have a VR headset.

I have 1000 hours in Elite and it's nowhere near as on rails or limited. It's set in a full scale Milky Way where you can pick up missions from a station's bulletin board, hunt pirates, or just pick a direction and jump to make discoveries, spending months alone scanning systems. The game has well developed lore that regularly updates through an in game feed, but it's mostly background fluff unless you want to strengthen your faction or if there's a major community event. It's also a good time to jump in since new ships have been added and the galaxy is rebuilding after the last war event.

o7 #KRAITKREW

Starfield has a focus on running around with your legs (or wheels), while ED is more about flying around with your spaceship (or wheels).