Quite the can'o'worms you're opening here. The most accurate answer, but least useful is, "it depends".
Before ranking frame materials, it's best to first narrow down the application, vintage, if applicable, and also budget.
As a first approximation, for a given application (e.g. mountain, road), you can consider frame strength a constant, regardless of material or price point. I.e., it is not needed as a criterion for choosing a material.
Longevity in hard use, and damage tolerance are different matters, and typically the edge goes to steel in these criteria (and titanium, which is a bit exotic these days and I guess always has been).
In new bikes, the most cost effective material from entry level (decent bikes, BSOs excluded) up to a certain point is aluminum. In vintage bikes, the most cost effective (and practically the only) material was steel, and the question boils down to which alloy. The more exotic the alloy, the lighter and springier the frame. There has been thread upon thread discussing the different bicycle tube steel alloys; and the selection (and behind the scenes technology) over the past 80 years or so is truly bewildering, so a brief summary is very difficult. I don't know if there is a comparative summary that goes beyond a snapshot of the state of the art at a given point in time, but the state of the art has certainly advanced considerably since the first iconic tubeset, Reynolds 531, of the 1930s. Not to say that 531 isn't still a highly admired and desirable tubeset in vintage bikes yet today.