Having switched to zigbee devices recently I regret trying to start with WiFi. While I'm not sure how it looks under the hood, adding devices with home assistant was miles easier.

I've helped lots of people with home automation Network build outs l; the biggest factor is the RF environment.

If you're fortunate enough to not be battery constrained at most endpoints and can put a high quality Wi-Fi access point in an optimal location than Wi-Fi is incredibly reliable.

The tooling for inspecting all layers of a Wi-Fi network is infinitely more accessible and mature and that certainly helps; I can't go to My local big box store and get a USB thread dongle for 20 bucks that will just work on a Lennox computer and integrate nicely with Wireshark out of the box...

Thread is fairly similar to Zigbee, just standardized and doesn't require brand specific hubs. You can actually control thread devices direct from an iphone with no hub at all.

Wifi for anything but cameras is a mistake, it only exists for maximum compatibility since everyone has wifi already.