What is the primary advantage of the Chebyshev filter over the Butterworth filter?

A Chebyshev filter is mathematically optimized to provide a very sharp transition between the passband and the stopband. This rapid roll-off, commonly referred to as 'steeper skirts,' makes the filter highly effective at rejecting unwanted frequencies that sit very close to the desired signal. To achieve this sharp cutoff, the Chebyshev design requires a compromise: it introduces 'ripple' into the passband. This means the amplitude of the desired signal will slightly fluctuate as it passes through the filter. This behavior directly contrasts with a Butterworth filter, which avoids passband ripple entirely but suffers from a much more gradual transition into the stopband.