Hello,
What is the difference between motor driver, motor controller, servo driver servo controller and ESC.
Which are more suitable for hobby robotics projects?
None of these terms are clearly defined, except perhaps ESC. Which is most suitable depends on what you want to do. In general...
A motor driver will be a low level circuit to drive a motor, often an H-bridge and often just a breakout board. It requires a signal from a microprocessor, sometimes serial (UART, SPI, I2C) and sometimes a PWM and direction signals.
A motor controller is more developed product often having a display and a knob or buttons to control the speed, power or position of a motor. Usually these are more expensive and stand alone, but sometimes get commands from a PC or microcontroller.
A servo driver is an add-on board allowing a microcontroller or computer to drive servos. It takes a command from the micro or PC and generates the PWM signal for the servo(s).
I don't remember hearing the name servo controller except maybe in the context of animation and motion control. I think it would be a programmable device that can "remember" sequences to automate displays
An Electronic Speed Controller (ESC) is usually a motor driver for RC vehicles. The input signal is a PWM signal the same as a servo and it generates the drive signals for the motor, usually Brushless DC Motors.