The novelization is far superior, imo. It gives full stories of the characters, more dialogue between Harry and Norman, and gives Venom more of a story, imo, than the five belittlement minutes we got, where he spent forty-five seconds getting Sandman to be his partner. And speaking of Sandman, we get full closure of his storylines(plural!!), because we know the doctor Sandman was stealing money for, and we get a closure of Penny getting helped and even Penny being the one to stop Sandman, which is an ending I would've enjoyed. Instead, we only got a half-ass attempt with Sandman's "family" arc.
Also, the novelization had a happy ending, where we got almost a cliffhanger ending thanks to the fact that there won't be a Sam Raimi Spider-Man 4.