The various development boards such as the NodeMCU or Wemos D1 make working with the ESP8266 an absolute breeze ... Just as with the Arduino, once you have the wiring sorted out and the code ...

you’ll use the usual language you use on the ESP8266 — [Acrobotic] uses C++ in the Arduino IDE. On the browser side you’ll use JavaScript, although that will be embedded in your C++ program ...