https://forum.lightburnsoftware.com/t/which-control-board-recomend/76113
My short answer: today, for common solid state/laser diode machine - MKS DLC32 is the choice, without LCD.

WIFI In

$15 from Ali or $30 from Amazon. I do not think this price can be beat. From Ali basic config comes with no stepper driver boards, though you can add some. Amazon came with bunch of 4988, which are ~$2 each. Better choice would be 2208, if you are willing to spend ~ $5 per driver board. They run essentially silent and have x4 finer stepping. If you are on the budget and do not care about very fine aspects of it - very little difference, 4988 are dirt cheap in bulk.
Original GRBL was written for old Atmel. ESP32 (used in DLC32) and STM32 are orders faster, but in practical terms once again very little difference, there is little chance you will ever run out of speed with old Atmel. There is essentially no difference in price, so for the same price I would chose some 32bit board. STM32 does not have WiFi, where ESP32 does.
Most ESP32 nowadays pretty much all running derivative of FluidNC firmware, including DLC32. MKS messed up LCD firmware, I’m still finding bugs, bit MKS not in hurry to fix any. IMHO there is no point in getting LCD for it. Same functionality is available with their pretty nice phone app. Unless you must have full offline control - skip the LCD. It can be used offline with phone, nothing lost.

Proper wiring is important. Unless you have cable kit specifically for your machine - you will need to make cables. Get connector kit and pin crimper. It does require some special knowledge to do it right, so unless you know what you are doing - get some help with wiring.