I think there's a conflation of processes and tools which leads to the false comparison. Print debugging is a process, which uses a tool called print statements. Stepping through code is a process, which uses a tool called the debugger.

Print debugging excels at triaging the problem. And every language has print statements. Ubiquitous first tier support. They help you narrow down where your assumptions about the program behavior may be wrong.

Once you know what area to focus on, you pull out the debugger and step thru the code.