Fundamentally, a direct device has fewer transformation losses.
Solar desalination looks pretty good in terms of efficiency. The problem is that the solar energy must now be collected at the shoreline. This means that a lot of coastal real estate gets turned into a desalination plant. Alternatively, you transport the water, but pumping seawater requires corrosion and fouling resistant materials throughout the system.
That is assuming your boiler uses resistive heating to generate heat and not heat pumps to move heat.