Unity support many model format: 3ds, obj, fbx, max, …
I wavering among them.
So which file is best for animation, and which is best for static model?
I suggest you to export your objects in fbx for a series of reasons (that i have no time to write now).
Anyway, the “automated” multiformat import of unity goes through fbx.
I don’t understand what does this mean?
that means that for most applications the actual import is fbx. max for example is never imported, in reality it will call to 3DS Max in the background and make it export FBX
normally you would use either FBX or Collada to drop into unity, they have the largest array of supported features.
and within unity they stop existing as fbx, collada etc anyway, they are converted to an engine representation of the data specific to unity
Thanks dreamora. 
For very big static models my experience is that .obj is loading faster than .fbx
For those of us finding this thread via Google, does the above advice still hold true?
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Which is bether dae ,glTF or USDZ.