If you're okay with old, battle-tested, cheap (and about 2-3 generations back in terms of performance)…

Any ath10k card is great. They support up to 802.11ac, cost about $10 (e.g. amazon.com/dp/B07HDXP9R4), and can run AP in either the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz bands.

The firmware and driver are very stable and they in terms of regulatory constraints they defer entirely to the Linux kernel (which means you can use https://github.com/singe/wifi-frequency-hacker or similar for frequency hacking).

I don't have much personal experience with ath11k (802.11ax) or ath12k (802.11be), but I've heard good things about them generally.

For use in a real, practical access point, you want to avoid Intel cards. Intel's firmware completely locks down the ability to run a 5 GHz AP. For whatever reason, Intel takes a maddeningly conservative view of regulatory restrictions. They clearly don't want their cards to be used in APs. On the other hand, Intel's cards have a nice feature that they support dual-channel operation with a single radio (e.g. `iw list` shows `channels <= 2`), which is extremely handy for running a quick-and-dirty 2.4 GHz access point while staying connected to a WiFi network.

Which bands and capabilities did you have in mind? For a basic 2.4 GHz, almost anything at this point. Intel and some iteris chipsets are well supported.

mt7996 is good for wifi 7. You can also check the suggested hardware list on the kismet project for good recommendations for older bands and protocol versions