5 reasons the Raspberry Pi is still the king of hobbyist SBCs

If you need a small, affordable computer for a personal project you’re trying to accomplish, now is the time. Single board computers make up a $3 billion market that is only expected to grow over the next decade. It means there are many options to choose frombut unless you have very specific needs, there’s one name to consider first: Raspberry Pi. Yes, there are dozens of SBC manufacturers, but there are plenty of reasons why Raspberry Pi still stands above them all.

5

The price is right

If you need a profitable SBC, come!

Raspberry Pi computers have always had a reputation for being inexpensive computers. The very first Raspberry Pi cost only $25, which meant that almost anyone could afford it. This push for affordability continues today, although it may be hard to see on devices like the $120 16GB Raspberry Pi 5. Just look at the base model Raspberry Pi 4 with 2GB RAM if you don’t believe me – it’s only $35 if you know where to look.

It’s important to remember that not everyone needs the latest and greatest computing power. The Raspberry Pi Zero can be purchased for about $15, is just as powerful as the original Pi, and has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, which the original didn’t have. What’s more, if you don’t even need an operating system, you can opt for the $5 Pico microcontroller, running on the custom-designed and now ubiquitous RP2040 chip.

4

Easy to buy

At least now that the global chip shortage has been overcome.

This may not sound true to those of you still unhappy about the global microchip shortage that made it nearly impossible to buy any SBC for several years following Covid-19, but compared to its competitors, the Raspberry Pi is easier to acquire. than any other SBC. I hear some of you scoff, but hear me out. The Raspberry Pi is the only SBC you can go to the store and buy. Of course, you should be lucky to have something like a Micro Center nearby, but the same can’t be said for any other SBC.

When it comes to online shopping, all the well-known hobbyist SBCs (Banana Pi, Orange Pi, LattePanda) are equally available on Amazon, the only caveat is that you’ll have to pay a little more than the suggested retail price. Unlike many SBCs, the Raspberry Pi is available through a number of retailers in the US, while other SBCs must be ordered from AliExpress or similar sites if you want to buy them at a lower price.

3

Stylish accessories

Dress your Raspberry Pi for success

You can have a lot of fun with the SBC as a simple computer with RetroPie or as a home server, but to do the really cool stuff you’ll have to pick up some accessories. The first thing most new Raspberry Pi owners choose is the ability to add a little security to their new SBC. Raspberry Pi shares the same dimensions with all of its products, so in addition to a wide selection of mass-market enclosures, there are also plenty of print-it-yourself options.

In addition to cases, there are plenty of cameras, hats, and accessories available for almost every Pi model. Want to run a small LLM on your Raspberry Pi? There’s a HAT for that. Do you want to install

infrared camera for night photography

? There’s a camera for that. Want to turn your Pi into

Geiger counter enabled

web server? It’s easy in Pi.

2

Huge pool of potential projects

Almost everything you could think of has already been done.

Although the original goal of the Raspberry Pi was to make computers more accessible and understandable, it was quickly adopted by the maker community, pushing the small computer to its limits. The release of the Raspberry Pi also followed the popularity of Arduino, which meant that there were a variety of small electrical modules that could interface with the Pi’s GPIO pins, opening up even more potential.

Add to all this over 10 years of development and a large engaged community, and you have a huge pool of project tutorials on the Internet. No matter how experienced a creator you are, there is almost certainly a project you can complete in a spare afternoon or evening. Plus, given the prevalence of projects, it’s easy to go from clueless noob to amateur hacker, one project at a time.

1

Durability of hardware and software

It will most likely run longer than you need it to.

When the Raspberry Pi was designed, durability was one of the designers’ main concerns. Piss was meant to be in the hands of children to help them better understand how computers work and how they are designed, and if there is one thing children are good at, it is breaking things. Raspberry Pis can last for years and are designed to last a long time, especially if you use a decent power supply and SD card.

When your Raspberry Pi eventually fails, you’ll likely be able to replace it with the same model and the same OS. In fact, if you take into account all the SBC models that Raspberry Pi has ever released, only two (the very first two) have been discontinued. All other models are still in production. Compute Module 1 and RPi 2 will retire in 2026, but new devices such as RPi 5 and Pico will remain in use until 2036.

How many more reasons do you need?

The Raspberry Pi has been around for over 10 years now, and if it continues this way (despite the lack of an NVMe slot in the 500), it will likely be here for many years to come. At this point, the only question you have to ask yourself is what you want to build with it.