What does usually decide it in practice?
Three things, in order. How long you'll stay: buying carries heavy one-off costs, transfer duty, legals, moving, that spread thin over ten years and crushingly over two. The deposit's other life: money in a property is not earning elsewhere, and fair comparisons remember that.
Stability you can't price: no landlord, no lease renewals, renovate when you like. The calculator handles the first; the second and third are worth a frank conversation.
If the buying side looks closer than you expected, run your actual borrowing power and the full cost of a purchase next, those two numbers turn this comparison from theory into a plan.
