Capacitor type selection
There are really countless metrics that are relevant for the type selection. There are some obvious aspects like cost, size, termination and polarity/non-polarity. But beyond, here is my short list of the most important metrics

ESR. It can range from \$m\Omega\$ for ceramics &amp; film up to several \$\Omega\$ for certain electrolytic caps. Sometimes ESR is good, sometimes bad. Several power supplies and older LDOs would oscillate without the cap ESR damping this. In a more modern context, ESR is considered bad and modern ICs demand low ESR caps to run stable. Decoupling caps should have very low ESR.

A close second is DC voltage dependence. Most cap types do not depend on DC bias. However, most used caps are not in the &quot;most types&quot; category, but are in fact in the single category of class II ceramic caps. These depend strongly on DC bias and lose a large fraction (e.g. half) of their capacitance at rated voltage. If DC-bias performance is critical, don't use class II/III ceramics. E.g. signal-passing capacitors and precision filter caps, sample-hold caps etc.

For high precision circuits, leakage current and microphony are both relevant as they lead to current and voltage errors. Basically class II/III ceramics are the only microphonic types, polymer caps have terrible leakage, wet electrolytics have mediocre leakage. All other caps are &quot;quite good&quot; but class I ceramics and especially film caps are considered the best for precision stuff. Both don't offer large capacitances, so this is often one spot where capacitor compromises have to be made.


Edit: I always mention class II and class III ceramics together. However, class III are much worse in both DC stability and temperature stability. Basically never use class III unless you have to compete with some sub-€ toys in alibaba.
A modern designer flowchart for picking cap type looks like this:
a) Use a Al electrolytic for bulk PSU decoupling and class II ceramic everywhere else.
b) Replace Al electrolytics with class II ceramic + optional series resistor for slim form factor requirements.
c) For precision stuff use class I ceramic or film.