Road or gravel?
Main differences I see are: Clearance for wider tires on gravel and the headtube angle steeper on road bikes.
Yeah, some other things - slightly longer chainstays, more attach points, etc - but those are less critical.

Wider tires is a clear cut issue - pick your preference, hard or soft.
The head tube angle affects handling. Steeper HTA on road bikes gives them best handling for pavement. A lesser HTA on gravel gives more straight line stability. Both work, both will go fast.


I'm a road bike rider - running 22/23/25mm tires is for good pavement. 28mm at lesser PSI gives 'softer' pavement rides and is my optimal width for cracked roads or hard packed trails with light gravel. I have a couple of roadies with supple 33mm Soma Vitesse that I have come to like for 'recovery' rides, that width is more than adequate for the 'packed dirt with some gravel' trails that I ride at times.

Good luck. The