So far as hardware though, what would you recommend?  Insta360?  Go pro?

I think either of those will serve near equally well, and will be much less effort than a live solution. Get one that does 8K(both new models do). Avoid the older 4k/5.6k stuff.

If you want to compare optics vs a cellphone camera, you can compare using pixels per degree as an estimate. Digital compression will vary of course.