I am new to zigbee, and want the the best futureproof and cross-brand solution. Since I also run my Home-Assistant on a virtual server a network-based gateway are prefferd.
If you have plan to also add zwave to your installation, you could considered GoControl HUSBZB-1 dongle. Otherwise I also zigbee2mqtt on a dongle CC2531 and it works very well except the range.
I started with zigbee2mqtt and found the range limited and was not very responsive. So I got the deCondz usb stick and never looked back well worth the money.
I started with Zigate. It was running fine most of the times, however it was lacking support. All of the sudden I decided to buy Deconz dongle. It was pricey but at the end of the day totally worth it. I was surprised how easy it is to add new devices and integrate them into Home Assistant. And compared to Zigate it is very fast and stable. Totally worth it!
The cc2531 Zigbee works on a mesh system and i only have a small house and the last bulb in my house is about 5 metres away, It worked 30% of the time.
I did find the cc2531 lacking big time with signal strength. I’ve now moved to a cc2530+rfx2402 dongle that uses an external antenna. This works flawlessly for my home.
EDIT: Since I wrote this I have moved to a conbee on native ZHA and an aeotec to separate my zigbee and z-wave devices and it has performed exceptionally.