Ever since the launch of the original Raspberry Pi back in 2012, this single-board computer family has dominated the DIY ecosystem. The situation is largely the same even in 2026, though rival systems have gotten significantly better over the last couple of years. Leaving aside the Zero series, the Raspberry Pi is no longer the budget-friendly champ it used to be back in the day, with many boards outright beating it in performance-per-dollar terms.

ESP32

It may be a microcontroller, but it’s better for certain projects

Let me preface this section by adding that the ESP32 is a microcontroller, making it a direct competitor to the Raspberry Pi Pico series and not a replacement for the mainline RPi SBCs. But if you were to compare them specifically for automation, circuitry, smart home, and robotics projects, the ESP32 is simply better than the Raspberry Pi SBC family.

For example, putting together something as wacky as a PC setup that turns on when you slap the table is way easier on the ESP32, as you can pair it with analog sensors without needing an ADC. For circuit projects involving a bunch of extra modules, ESPHome lets you flash code directly to the microcontroller, and you don’t have to deal with the overhead and multiple abstraction layers of the underlying OS as you would on a Raspberry Pi SBC. Sure, it may not be able to run anything demanding, but when you want a dirt-cheap board that can prototype simple projects or create sensor-based Home Assistant automations, you’ll get solid mileage with ESP32 systems.

Arduino Uno Q

A peculiar board that walks the fine line between SBC and microcontroller

Switching gears from a full-fledged microcontroller to a system that is a mixture of an MCU and an SBC, the Arduino Uno Q is quite a weird device. For example, you can use the STM32U585 chip on the board for typical microcontroller projects involving low-level hardware programming, though you also get a Debian-based Linux flavor to experiment with the tools from the Arduino App Lab.

Thanks to the dual-brain system of the Uno Q, you can program the QRB2210 Linux processor with Python code, all while controlling the underlying microcontroller using C++ programs, with the App Lab acting as the bridge between the two. Rather than excelling on one front, the Arduino Uno Q flip-flops between the two, making it more of a cool hybrid than a perfect Raspberry Pi replacement. But if you’re a hardcore tinkerer looking for a relatively cheap dev board, the Uno Q is worth checking out.

ZimaBoard 2

A powerhouse in the SBC form-factor

As much as I adore the Raspberry Pi’s energy-efficient nature, the SBC family’s reliance on Arm processors isn’t something I particularly appreciate, especially with x86 boards starting to emerge in the general consumer space. Take the ZimaBoard 2, for example. Since it has an N150 processor and dual SATA connectors, it leaves any ol’ Raspberry Pi in the dust for Network-Attached Storage projects.

You also get a fully-functional PCIe slot, so you can arm it with a boot SSD for the NAS distro or opt for another network interface card. Speaking of NICs, the ZimaBoard 2 ships with two 2.5GbE ports, unlike the single RJ45 connection on RPi 5 systems, making it a terrific option for an OPNsense router. Truth be told, it’s more expensive than the official launch prices of the Raspberry Pi 5 systems, but you can opt for the slightly weaker ZimaBlade (or even the OG ZimaBoard) if you want an x86 machine to power your NAS or router (or a mixture of the two with an OPNsense/PfSense VM running inside a server-centric distro).

Radxa X4

Closest thing to a Raspberry Pi killer out there

I’ve reviewed my fair share of single-board systems here on XDA, but the Radxa X4 is the only device that manages to surpass the Raspberry Pi on nearly every front besides energy-efficiency, all the while costing nearly the same as the RPi 5. It has the same credit card form factor as the Raspberry Pi, but with an x86 N100 processor, so you get better OS compatibility and terrific performance even on something as bloated as Windows 11.

Aside from a 2.5G Ethernet port, the Radxa X4 includes an M.2 2230 SSD slot, so you don’t have to purchase extra adapters just to pair NVMe drives with the SBC. Weirdly enough, it even ships with an RP2040 microcontroller that you can program like a typical Pico, and you get the typical 40 GPIO pins for sensor modules. I’ve used this SBC for everything from emulation projects to controlling smart home devices via Home Assistant, and it has exceeded its Raspberry Pi equivalent in every scenario. Throw in Proxmox, and you can turn it into a reliable self-hosting workstation capable of running GUI VMs alongside an arsenal of LXCs.