No, that's wrong. The signal pins absolutely are 5V tolerant (confirmed by the CEO of Espressif) and work perfectly but if you put 5V to VCC it will fry instant

No, that's wrong. The signal pins absolutely are 5V tolerant (confirmed by the CEO of Espressif) and work perfectly but if you put 5V to VCC it will fry instantly. I know from experience, in both cases. It used to be the case that people were unsure if the logic pins were 5V tolerant or not due to ambiguity in the datasheet and the consensus was to be cautious, but it has since been officially confirmed that they are tolerant. Some other devices (e.g. relays, some MOSFET gates) might require a 5V output level to trigger, in which case you will need a level shifter/transistor, but 5V inputs to the pins are fine (and most digital devices that work at 5V logic levels will be fine with 3.3V logical high due to the way TTL levels are defined).