Yes, the ESP32 uses a ton of power relative to most MCUs (external flash comes at a cost!) and has relatively poor peripherals, documentation and tooling. But i

Yes, the ESP32 uses a ton of power relative to most MCUs (external flash comes at a cost!) and has relatively poor peripherals, documentation and tooling. But it's cheap and not bad if you need WiFi or Bluetooth. Most non-networked projects would probably be better served by one of the numerous Cortex-M microcontrollers out there.