The problem with the ESP32 is that it has some pretty insane peak power draw figures (nearly an amp at times, far higher than the official spec of ~300mA) that catch people off guard in low power battery applications, and the dev/carrier board quality varies a fair bit. A lot of early 8266 and 32 boards had quite high power drain just from the board itself; things like poorly chosen resistor networks for battery voltage monitoring, for example. You used to be able to find reviews covering this sort of thing but that information seems to have fallen by the wayside.
Wemos/Lolin and 1-2 others are the main/best suppliers for ESP boards, generally.