Arduino boards

What hackers pick instead

• ESP32A cheap microcontroller with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, strong docs and many examples, often preferred over a Raspberry Pi when no OS is needed; battery projects can struggle with power draw.190recommend
• Raspberry Pi PicoCheap, capable microcontroller board that people use for physical computing, prototyping and education; critics say it has limited RAM and flash and weak Wi-Fi connectivity.72recommend
• Raspberry Pi RP2040Cheap, well-documented microcontroller with a programmable PIO block for custom I/O, widely recommended for prototyping. Common caveat: its ADCs have only 12-bit resolution and some nonlinearity.29recommend
• ESP32-S3Cheap microcontroller with dual cores, plenty of I/O and strong value for its price. Critics say it is power-hungry and weak for heavy workloads like music encoding.26recommend
• STM32 microcontrollerCheap, feature-rich ARM microcontrollers with many chip variants, plentiful examples and readily available documentation. Common caveats are hardware bugs and a steep learning curve.25recommend

Every quote

The 40 most detailed of 184 comments. Each links to the original.

1. Arduino is definitely the best I know of for embedded programming, and it has its place there, but I stopped trying to do real work with it.

   Mixed · Dec 2025 · in “Adafruit: Arduino’s Rules Are ‘Incompatible With Open Source’”

2. The hardware abstractions Arduino imposes can get really annoying once you start doing more advanced timing dependent stuff.

   Mixed · Feb 2026 · in “Ask HN: How to get started with robotics as a hobbyist?”

3. you can just use an arduino, esp32, or an actual microcontroller for a fraction of the price and power consumption

   Recommends · May 2026 · in “News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development – Jeff Geerling”

4. Simple to install IDE that wraps up a text editor, tool chain and libraries with matching plug and play hardware

   Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “FPGAs Need a New Future”

5. I could see them restricting the licensing for commercial use, while keeping it freely usable for education

   Mixed · Nov 2025 · in “Arduino published updated terms and conditions: no longer an open commons”

6. their software library is so high level that it eats so much resources on the underlying microcontrollers

   Mixed · Nov 2025 · in “The Death of Arduino?”

7. make it really easy to use sensors and other hardware without needing to write intermediate level code

   Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Arduino published updated terms and conditions: no longer an open commons”

8. The arduino project jumpstarted a whole ecosystem, but I don't that ecosystem needs arduino anymore.

   Mixed · Nov 2025 · in “The Death of Arduino?”

9. There are thousands of free tutorials, designs, libraries etc. all available for you to try out

   Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “The Death of Arduino?”

10. Arduino/Raspberry/ESP32-compatible stuff is cheap and available. Lots of information about it.

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Nokia N900 Necromancy”

11. massively out of date platform easily outclassed by much cheaper and more flexible solutions

    Mixed · Nov 2025 · in “Arduino published updated terms and conditions: no longer an open commons”

12. It's lot more then "just the ide" that has made Arduino so successful and accessible though.

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Arduino published updated terms and conditions: no longer an open commons”

13. as soon as you have to go below all the abstractions it does for you things get cryptic

    Mixed · Jun 2026 · in “Retro-Tech Parenting”

14. The Raspberry Pi and Arduino platforms weren't meant to power commercial-grade products

    Mixed · Jun 2026 · in “Raspberry Pi 5 – 16 GB, $350”

15. how many young EEs of today can point to Arduino as their first exposure to electronics

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “The Death of Arduino?”

16. Arduino has been an easy & super fun way to futz with a tiny bare metal microprocessor

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Sandia National Labs SA3000 8085 CPU”

17. fuck ton of example code already exists for it, and can be easily controlled over USB

    Recommends · Oct 2026 · in “Jailbreaking the Switch 2”

18. Simple cpu, simple interface library, go from zero to making stuff move in no time.

    Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Ask HN: How to get started with robotics as a hobbyist?”

19. Arduino is as influential as it is controversial and has been from the beginning.

    Mixed · Nov 2025 · in “The Death of Arduino?”

20. Arduino and related technologies have revolutionzed scientific instrument making.

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “The Death of Arduino?”

21. You start programming with option to expand to the larger project in the future.

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “Mini Micro Fantasy Computer”

22. that's where the Arduino ecosystem USP was versus other more powerful platforms

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Adafruit: Arduino’s Rules Are ‘Incompatible With Open Source’”

23. people will sacrifice a bit of performance for something that's easy to develop

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Arduino UNO Q bridges high-performance computing with real-time control”

24. Thanks to the open source nature of the Arduino ecosystem, you can make it so!

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “The Death of Arduino?”

25. many popular SBCs with the same performance at cheaper cost (O-Pi, arduino)

    Mixed · Oct 2026 · in “Price Increases for 2GB Raspberry Pi 4 and Raspberry Pi 5”

26. users are now explicitly forbidden from reverse-engineering or even attempting to understand how the platform works unless Arduino gives permission

    Criticizes · Nov 2025 · in “The Death of Arduino?”

27. For Arduino (the brand), I think it is dying, but that just because you can buy generic ESP32 boards on AliExpress for cheaper

    Criticizes · Nov 2025 · in “The Death of Arduino?”

28. Their hardware doesn't have anything to offer that you can't get on aliexpress or spin yourself for a tenth the cost.

    Criticizes · Nov 2025 · in “The Death of Arduino?”

29. Arduino's hackability was its unique selling point. When it is no longer hackable, what is left (of the company)?

    Criticizes · Nov 2025 · in “The Death of Arduino?”

30. I don't really understand how what they try to achieve with these new "terms and conditions" is legally possible.

    Criticizes · Nov 2025 · in “The Death of Arduino?”

31. didn't have a practical advantage over STM32, Nordic, Espressif chips (Or dev boards) beyond name recognition

    Criticizes · Nov 2025 · in “The Death of Arduino?”

32. The only thing that has kept Arduino competitive is their brand, good reputation, and focus on the education and tinkerer space.

    Mixed · Nov 2025 · in “The Death of Arduino?”

33. it was much easier to just install a Linux on a Pi and run a bash script than to learn how to program an Arduino

    Mixed · Apr 2026 · in “DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market”

34. we had Arduinos and Raspberry PI's filling a similar need (computer to electronics being needlessly complicated)

    Mixed · Apr 2026 · in “Alberta Startup Sells No-Tech Tractors for Half Price”

35. Arduino is a kind of horrible product that did not make anything possible and did not really invent anything.

    Mixed · Dec 2025 · in “FPGAs Need a New Future”

36. I certainly appreciate how their whole ecosystem has made working with microcontrollers more accessible

    Mixed · Nov 2025 · in “Arduino published updated terms and conditions: no longer an open commons”

37. the closest thing I've found to the feeling of writing C in the 90s was Arduino sketches a decade ago

    Recommends · Oct 2026 · in “Borland Turbo Basic”

38. The cool thing about an Arduino is you can just buy the boards and use them in a commercial product.

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Arduino published updated terms and conditions: no longer an open commons”

39. the boards and modules just seem to be getting ever more complex, with lots of tiny SMD components

    Mixed · Jul 2026 · in “Arduino Launches Plug-and-Play Modules for Long-Range Sensor Projects”

40. Hobby electronics have become far more accessible and inexpensive. Arduino, raspberry pi, etc.

    Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “I used to be excited about new tech, but I rarely am anymore”