# Raspberry Pi

425 Hacker News commenters recommended Raspberry Pi and 277 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 5.5 years (35 owners).

**Verdict:** Recommended for its reliable long-term software support, huge community and flexibility as a small Linux box with GPIO, though critics say prices have climbed and performance-per-watt lags.

## Why people recommend it

- Long-term software and Linux support (10 comments): "Other boards like the Raspberry Pi and many boards based on Rockchip SoCs have most of the necessary support mainlined, so the experience is quite painless." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46403142)) "They're relatively common in industrial applications now because they have really good software support and great long-term availability." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48482782)) "you can either spend an insane amount of time getting things working on your custom SBC, or get something well-supported for free" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45944161))
- Flexible for many headless projects (5 comments): "That's really the magic of the Pi. You can keep one gizmo around, and use it to solve (a large fraction of) two classes of problems." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48315405)) "They're interesting precisely because they can do what a microcontroller can do, while still being a full Linux system." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45800246)) "This is also how I feel about Raspberry Pis. There's so much they can't do, and yet in a way they can do everything." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47360611))
- Long product availability (3 comments): "They're relatively common in industrial applications now because they have really good software support and great long-term availability." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48482782)) "they're the only SBC board (not x86 baed) that you're guaranteed will have at least some software support after 5+ years" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49327877)) "you know you'll have software support, and you know that the vendor will be making the exact thing you bought for 5-10y" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48313726))

## What people warn about

- No longer cheap; poor price-performance (4 comments): "something has gone dreadfully wrong in the economy when individual 8GB+ raspberry pi are now costing $200 to $300" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49562255)) "Raspberry Pi hasn't been a cheap SBC for a long time. It's now in the same market segment as a NUC, but without the case and with worse price to performance." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47296986)) "with where they've taken pricing and as you said, where the market has gone, they've become all but irrelevant in that space" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49938231))
- SD card corruption (2 comments): "The recommended software, derived from Debian, and the default configuration of that software is what causes the SD card corruption, not the RPi development board" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48982589)) "I was tinkering with a kit, but I moped into a Linux User Group meeting, complaining how often I'd ruined an sdcard filesystem" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49251758))
- Weak performance per watt (3 comments): "They've never been particularly low-power, in a performance-per-Watt sort of way compared to other offerings at whatever present day." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48313102)) "The performance per watt lagged behind even a beefy Intel box since the original Raspi was so slow that it destroyed any gain it got from using so little power." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48312735)) "raspberry pi has terrible power management as well. turning off a core was impossible on previous generations for example" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48313189))
- Slow for compiling and desktop use (2 comments): "Websites even with a simple animation are laggy, startup takes a few minutes." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46107186)) "The Pi 5 is decently powerful, but you really really should not be attempting to use one as a desktop replacement." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47607614))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Raspberry Pi Zero](https://hackerapproved.com/p/raspberry-pi-zero.md): 77 recommend
- [NVIDIA Jetson](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nvidia-jetson.md): 28 recommend
- [Orange Pi 6 Plus](https://hackerapproved.com/p/orange-pi-6-plus.md): 18 recommend
- [Raspberry Pi 2](https://hackerapproved.com/p/raspberry-pi-2.md): 12 recommend
- [SpacemiT K3](https://hackerapproved.com/p/spacemit-k3.md): 12 recommend

## Where to get it

- [See price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Raspberry+Pi+5&tag=YOURTAG-20) (affiliate link)
- [Official site](https://www.raspberrypi.com/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Raspberry Pi", https://hackerapproved.com/p/raspberry-pi/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).