Many people use https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/ now too, it seems people are moving in this direction

Saw this too recently - https://www.cnx-software.com/2021/09/27/zb-gw03-esp32-based-..., quite nice

I've been happy with the ZHA implementation and haven't tried z2mqtt. I am much happier with zwavejs than the old implementation, though.

I do run MQTT for a few wifi devices and communication between node red and custom client code on my laptop/desktop.

I started with ZHA but had problems with some devices (e.g. a 4-way switch panel that would only show as a single button.) I've had a much better experience with zigbee2mqtt, and it seems a bit more powerful

ZHA is great and fast, I prefer it instead of zigbee2mgtt. I have 100+ zigbee devices and 80 z-wave.