Why I’ll Never Buy a Raspberry Pi Alternative Again
I know, I know. When you see the current Raspberry Pi prices and compare them to the much cheaper boards on AliExpress, it’s hard to resist. Some of them even have better specs on paper. So why pay more for a Raspberry Pi when all those “fruit Pi” boards seem to do the same thing? Well, be very cautious when making that choice.
The Raspberry Pi manufacturer has built not only a great hardware ecosystem but also a strong and reliable software environment as well as a huge community that none of its competitors can currently compete with.
And believe me, I tried.
Whether during the Raspberry Pi shortages following the pandemic, or when prices started to rise crazily for the latest model, it was very tempting. But each time I was very disappointed. So before buying some Banana Pi, Orange Pi, or similar, make sure it meets ALL your requirements.
For example, here are a few things to consider in addition to prices and specifications.
Available operating systems
Many of those Raspberry Pi alternatives claim they support many systems, like Debian or Ubuntu, so you feel it’s OK, you can do the same thing as with a Raspberry Pi.
In reality, you’ll often find just one community image based on an old release, sometimes hosted on a random Google Drive folder. Once the board is released, these images are rarely updated, so you may still be installing the same outdated version years later.
If you want a clearer path than jumping from tutorial to tutorial, my book gives you a step-by-step roadmap to really understand your Raspberry Pi.
Check the book here
Raspberry Pi is completely different. Raspberry Pi Imager gives you dozens of officially supported operating systems, and Raspberry Pi OS is maintained by the Raspberry Pi team with regular updates.
Most major distributions also release Raspberry Pi images alongside their official releases.
Documentation
Raspberry Pi isn’t a one-man project. It has a dedicated engineering team, extensive official documentation, and a huge ecosystem of vendors and creators building products, writing guides, and sharing tutorials. It’s hard to find another SBC with that level of support.
If you’re lucky, the alternatives will offer a basic wiki page that’s got everything all in one place, like download links, installation steps, and a few known issues. You won’t get the same level of detail that you’d find in the Raspberry Pi documentation.
Incompatibility issues
Even if you manage to find an operating system image that supports your new shiny device in their messy “documentation”, you’re not done yet.
When I tried a few simple Python projects on my Banana Pi, many libraries were already installed but didn’t actually work. And when I tried to install the missing ones myself, most of them simply weren’t available.
With Raspberry Pi, it’s usually the opposite. Raspberry Pi OS is built specifically for Raspberry Pi hardware, and most tutorials, Python libraries and accessories are tested on it first. If you follow a guide, there’s a good chance it’ll work exactly as expected.
Finding help
Raspberry Pi has been around for over a decade and has sold more than 70 million boards. That means you’ll find millions of users asking questions, sharing tips, or writing tutorials like RaspberryTips 🙂
If you get an error or are unsure how to build something on Raspberry Pi, there’s a good chance someone has already solved it or done it. With most alternatives, you might find some answers to basic questions (if you’re lucky), but most of the time, you’ll have to deal with it on your own.
It’s even more annoying because, from what I’ve seen, there are way more issues with the non-Raspberry Pi boards and systems. You can expect to lose a lot of time because of this.
Overall, an alternative can rarely compete with a real Raspberry Pi board. It might work if you’re a Linux expert and just building something basic (like running a web server on any Linux distribution), but it’ll quickly become too limited for most projects.
If price is your biggest concern, check out some of the more affordable Raspberry Pi options. A few of them are actually pretty impressive considering their low price tag.
Side note: many of these alternatives that stayed affordable because they had enough stock to deliver are also getting pricier lately because of the spike in RAM prices. So make sure you’re really getting a good deal if you decide to buy one.
Convinced? Here are some of the best Raspberry Pi projects you can build once you get yours.
