Ethernet modules with Arduino are extremely reliable (except ENC28J60) if the module is built properly.
Honestly I would not consider ESP32 with Ethernet a “better” option, it is just another option. Could be better depending on your application, could be the same.
One thing I noted about your code is that it won’t run reliably long term. Because it uses the String class, it will eventually fragment memory to the point the processor runs out then locks. This combined with the large number of literal strings used in serial.print which eat memory.
Don’t use String. Use character arrays (char) referred to as cstrings. They use fixed memory allocations.
Surround all literal strings in serial.print with the F macro to store them in progmem. Like: serial.print(F(“this string can be up to about 30K big and not use any RAM to print because it is printed directly from flash memory, not copied to RAM then printed”));