All the 32bit controllers do much better than ATMEGA based ones since they typically have more flexible IO mappings, more timers, etc. Plus they have the performance to do software PWM where appropriate too.
For the ESP32 you need to use a twin-core dev board, add a SD card reader, then run FluidNC, (which evolved from GRBL-ESP32, but is now it’s own beast).
I’ve promoted FluidNC here before, I use it at home in my mini CNC and think it is great. It’s still evolving too and can now run multi-axis machines via I2C drivers etc…
- All configuration is in a config file on the SD card, which you can edit by hand, including via the web interface.
- You can have multiple config files for different machine configurations.
- As a result the firmware can be installed / upgraded as a binary blob, no compilation needed.
- The original
$$grbl config still exists, but is mapped to a much more capable config system that allows all your hardware, modes, etc to be modified from the terminal, which is part of the built in web interface. - It uses one core for movement, another for the web UI and SD access / queue / terminal etc…