I ended up going with Iosevka because it's basically PragmataPro without the 200EUR ($223) price tag. I just can't justify that much for a freaking font to myself, no matter how nice it looks.

You could just buy the normal and perhaps italic weights.

If you're a software engineer, $100 on a font that you look at 8 hours everyday for a living is a no brainer. You'd probably spend $80 on a mouse, $100 on a keyboard, $120 on a good pair of shoes, $1500 on a good mattress, fonts are one of those things. If you like it, there shouldn't be a hesitation for "oh...its just a font, why should I pay for it".

Typefaces are insanely hard to design and optimize. Sometimes, it takes a couple of years to develop one typeface.

I've heard this argument many times, and it would work in a vacuum. A $100 keyboard is probably better than a $10 keyboard.

This $200 font is not better than this other $0 font, and it has the same aesthetic. And good luck quantifying "better than" given a list of feature checkboxes that are common to all "programming fonts" including Fira Code, Source Code Pro, etc.

I wasn't trying to imply $200 font is better. I think you missed my point - which is that there is a stigma associated with paying for fonts and that usually comes from the fact that people do not know what goes into development of fonts due to the abundance of free fonts available on the internet. Sure, free fonts can be great - I did not say they can't be.

One of my favorite fonts is Isoveska which is free.

What advantages does PragmataPro offer over Iosevka?

I would think it would have to be pretty significant, given the licensing and customisability of Iosevka.

PragmataPro user here, I just love it everyday of my dev life