You’re going to need a lot more panels to operate battery less. Unless you are happy with a proof of concept where it runs for 10 min in a perfect hand crafted situation.
If you want a simple, non intimidating starting point, the solar generators with a battery may make more sense. But you may have to throw it away/repurpose it for something else
Buying panels one at a time is only efficient locally or with maybe RV sized panels that somehow ship for free from Amazon and Walmart.
Hypothetically are you ok with trying a small scale system that glitched and fails badly, for learning. Or do you want to follow things that cost more and have higher chance of success, but your incomplete knowledge of solar fails to tell you that is necessary (but folks on the forum say you need)