# ESP32-S3

26 Hacker News commenters recommended ESP32-S3 and 10 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 11 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Cheap 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.

## Why people recommend it

- Strong value for the price (6 comments): "the ESP32 S3 with the slower flash and PSRAM is the lowest cost that you can find" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48489060)) "ESP32-S3 devices are ridiculously cheap and come in a myriad of form factors" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49923887)) "For its price, the ESP32-S3 is a powerhouse of a microcontroller." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50245686))
- Plenty of I/O and USB host (3 comments): "Having two usb ports with one otg lets you do some neat things that would cost $100+ otherwise" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49053410)) "ESP32-S3 has enough of IO to handle an absurd variety of tasks" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48970584)) "ESP32-S3 is a great USB host" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49875355))
- Easy hardware, many form factors (2 comments): "I liked how the hardware is really easy to make, I just soldered a USB port to an ESP32-S3 and that was it!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46364109)) "ESP32-S3 devices are ridiculously cheap and come in a myriad of form factors" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49923887))
- Better wireless link rates and latency (2 comments): "the bandwidth to get IQs out fast enough like you can on the S3/S31" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50071519)) "the ESP32-S3 certainly has better link rates and latency" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48399566))

## What people warn about

- Underpowered for demanding tasks (3 comments): "these chips just aren't quite powerful enough for high-quality music encoding" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48387681)) "Tried running yolo pose on bare S3, and the results were underwhelming." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49834277)) "ESP32-S3 is really too underpowered for larger e-ink devices" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48998136))
- High power consumption (3 comments): "idle current with the radio enabled, but not transmitting, is quite terrible" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47628182)) "I doubt if esp32s3's power consumption can be used in real life." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47881474)) "The S3 (and other Espressif chips) are pretty power-hungry." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47634668))
- No 32-bit vector or SIMD support (2 comments): "the lack of support for vector operations for 32 bits makes me very grumpy" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50248010)) "ESP32-S3 SIMDs are super difficult to use unfortunately" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50246218))
- Awkward Xtensa architecture (2 comments): "ESP32-S3 may be the worse model to run Rust on due to the XTensa cores that makes the toolchain unnecessarily complicated." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47919412)) "The Xtensa LX7 in the S3 is very weird, though also quite fun to play with" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47303809))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [ESP32](https://hackerapproved.com/p/esp32.md): 190 recommend
- [Arduino boards](https://hackerapproved.com/p/arduino.md): 81 recommend
- [Raspberry Pi Pico](https://hackerapproved.com/p/raspberry-pi-pico.md): 72 recommend
- [Raspberry Pi RP2040](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rp2040.md): 29 recommend
- [STM32 microcontroller](https://hackerapproved.com/p/stm32.md): 25 recommend

## Where to get it

- [See price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=ESP32-S3+development+board+Espressif&tag=hackerapprove-20) (affiliate link)
- [Official site](https://www.espressif.com/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "ESP32-S3", https://hackerapproved.com/p/esp32-s3/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).