What are your preferred alternatives to the Raspberry Pi?

Question

The last Raspberry Pi I owned was the Model B - so it's been a while for me, to say the least.That board impressed me to no end. Being able to play Quake III on something about the size of a credit card blew my little kid brain to pieces.Things have no doubt come a long way since then for Raspberry Pis, and, likewise for the single-board computer space in general, I'm sure.And so, with the upcoming release of the Raspberry Pi 5, it's made me curious as to what other options are out there to use as a sort of "minimum viable" personal computer.Are there any other boards out there with similar (or better) specs?

nullindividual · Accepted Answer

I'm a fan of the hardkernel.com N2+ computer with eMMC storage. I've only used them for non-desktop work (DNS, DHCP, etc). They're a couple of years old now and it looks like they may have better performing SoCs. They also have x86-64 PCs w/ Intel UHD gfx in the same form factor but the cost is much higher, along with sourcing your own SODIMMs. For a PC, I would jump for the x86-64 system vs. Arm SoCs. There is much less friction with x86 overall.

justin66 · Answer

If you need more power than the Pi 5, Nvidia's embedded ARM stuff is great, and there are some pretty interesting new X64 SBCs that recently came out very recently.
If you need less power... but cheaper, maybe? That's a pretty big category. The Pi Zero 2 W has some entertainment value.
If you're dedicated to trying Linux on a knockoff Pi type of thing, pick something that looks well supported at www.armbian.com, or failing that, be very sure of what the vendor-supplied software support looks like for the device you consider. There is so much crap software out there.

lproven · Answer

Too vague, too general, and contains misunderstandings.All the main Pis have had a Model B. There was a RasPi 1 Model B, RP 2 B, RP 3 B and RP 4 B.Preferred alternative for doing what?

suyula · Answer

A 10 year old netbook from the pawn shop or thrift store.

mikecoles · Answer

OrangePi. Odroid. Pine64.