Term and permanent life insurance are usually presented as competing products, which invites the wrong question. The useful question is not "which is better" but "how long does the need this policy is covering actually last" — because that single fact does most of the work of choosing between them.
What term is built for
Term life insurance covers a fixed number of years — commonly ten, twenty, or thirty — for a level premium, and pays a death benefit only if the insured dies within that term. It has no cash value and expires with nothing returned if the term is outlived. It is, dollar for dollar, the least expensive way to cover a need with a known end date: income replacement until children are financially independent, or a mortgage until it is paid off.
What permanent is built for
Permanent life insurance — whole life, universal life, and their variants — does not expire as long as premiums are paid, and it accumulates a cash value that grows on a tax-advantaged basis. It costs several times more than term for the same death benefit, and that higher cost is the price of two things: a guarantee that never lapses, and a savings component attached to the policy.
Where the higher cost earns its keep
Permanent coverage tends to make sense when the need itself is permanent rather than term-limited: estate liquidity to cover taxes on an illiquid estate, income replacement for a dependent who will never be financially independent, or a business succession funding mechanism that needs to exist for as long as the business does. In those cases, a need with no natural end date is being matched with coverage that has no natural end date, and the higher premium is buying something a term policy structurally cannot.
The actual decision
Most people default to comparing premiums, which makes term look like the obvious answer, because it usually is cheaper for the same death benefit. The comparison that actually matters is between the shape of the need and the shape of the coverage. A term policy on a permanent need eventually expires and leaves the need uncovered. A permanent policy on a term-limited need pays for guarantees nobody needed past a certain date. The product follows from the need, not the other way around.