ESP32-P4
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 12 of 28 microcontrollers by recommenders
Powerful dual-core RISC-V chip, but it lacks built-in wireless and has supply and documentation issues.
Powerful dual-core RISC-V chip, but it lacks built-in wireless and has supply and documentation issues.
20 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 15
- criticize it
- 5
- approval share
- 75%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 15 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 7 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Powerful dual-core RISC-V with acceleration
“If you're excited about the (relatively) speedy RISC-V cores and SIMD, look at the P4 which is available now.”
Comment from 3 Jun 2026 in “ESP32-S31” “running dual cores and with all sorts of computational acceleration built in”
Comment from 26 Oct 2026 in “SIMD-accelerated computer vision on a $2 microcontroller” “the P4s look like an absolute beast”
Comment from 7 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Look Ma, No Linux: Shell, App Installer, Vi, Cc on ESP32-S3 / BreezyBox” - Comment from 9 Jan 2026 in “Embassy: Modern embedded framework, using Rust and async”
- Comment from 3 Apr 2026 in “ESP32-S31: 320MHz 2C RV32IMAFCP+CLIC, 512KB SRAM, GbE, 802.11ax, 61 GPIO”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Early chip revisions with issues
“they use the 1.0 version of the P4 which also has its issues”
Comment from 31 Oct 2026 in “Sylphide OS: a general-purpose OS for microcontroller-based computers” “It is now more than 2 years and 3rd chip revision”
Comment from 3 Apr 2026 in “ESP32-S31: 320MHz 2C RV32IMAFCP+CLIC, 512KB SRAM, GbE, 802.11ax, 61 GPIO”
Other microcontrollers people recommend
The four most recommended other microcontrollers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ESP32 | 190 | 35 | 84% | 12 | 5 yrs3 owners | Approved |
| Arduino boards | 81 | 73 | 53% | 12 | 16 yrs7 owners | — |
| Raspberry Pi Pico | 72 | 16 | 82% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Raspberry Pi RP2350 | 47 | 13 | 78% | 11 | — | Approved |
| ESP32-P4This page | 15 | 5 | 75% | 7 | — | Approved |
What people said
22 of the 25 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“they use the 1.0 version of the P4 which also has its issues”
“A major annoyance is the USB-JTAG flapping which is the same on both board copies and different hosts”
“Median of less than 2 seconds for final word after its spoken on esp32 is insane”
“They do not hesitate to ship hardware prior to publishing comprehensive documentation.”
“running dual cores and with all sorts of computational acceleration built in”
“I have a prototype running 2 A2-full profiles, along with 10 other effect blocks, on a P4.”
“Said performance is good, but what blows me away is that there’s no jitter”
“P4 didn't have enough raw speed for camera applications but had MIPI CSI”
“it feels like a hack, and the BOM cost is more than 2x a single chip”
“I'm excited that this MCU and the P4 has RISC-V CLIC.”
“the P4 is powerful but lacks wireless”
“If you're excited about the (relatively) speedy RISC-V cores and SIMD, look at the P4 which is available now.”
“we lost the MIPI support that the P4 dual-core RISC-V line has”
“It has so much horsepower, and it's not encumbered by the mandatory wifi/BT stacks.”
“It is amazingly powerful.”
“it nicely hovers around 90-100 mbps”
“local supply of esp32-p4 went dry”
“It is now more than 2 years and 3rd chip revision”
“the P4s look like an absolute beast”
“The p4 looks like a beast”
“the spec mention "768 KiB SRAM", which is laughably small for Linux”
“could be interesting for running native Linux, but as the article suggests it was supposed to be released in January 2023”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.