Does organic self-repair outweigh biological risk?

Is organic self-repair really better than repairing a conventional ship with spare parts?

Not necessarily; self-healing is useful, but biological infection can become a ship-wide failure mode.

Organic self-repair can restore damage without manufacturing and installing a conventional spare part. The tradeoff is that the structure shares a biology and chemistry with the organisms living inside it. A pathogen can therefore spread through both vessel and inhabitants. Stargate demonstrates that a disease introduced through prey can create trouble throughout a hive. The preference here is for replaceable conventional components and a hull that cannot itself catch an infection.