You'll have a good experience with zigbee if you have a solid base layer of lights or smart outlets. Mains-powered devices act as repeaters in zigbee networks.

You'll have a good experience with zigbee if you have a solid base layer of lights or smart outlets. Mains-powered devices act as repeaters in zigbee networks. Without enough repeaters, it might be tricky to place a distant contact sensor and have it behave reliably. Like other commentators, I have both z-wave and zigbee networks running. Z-wave has better standalone penetration (lower frequency), but if I were to build from the ground up again I would go all-in on zigbee. One of the few reasons I have a z-wave network at all is a smart lock, but these days there are more zigbee offerings there. All lights in my house are hue bulbs, using a deconz setup controlled by home assistant. My aqara motion/contact sensors get ~2 years of battery life.