Is that preferable to having an attenuator or is it about the same but more economic?
Different things.
An attenuator goes at the end of your signal chain (after the amp). At this point, audio signal is not low level anymore (as opposed to an EQ pedal). So the attenuator turns excess wattage into heat using a coil and the tone you get is said to be (never experimented myself) different than what you would get from a cab.
Now that does not mean EQ pedal doesn’t change the tone, surely it does. However it only changes the low level signal before its sent to power amp.