# Raspberry Pi RP2350

47 Hacker News commenters recommended Raspberry Pi RP2350 and 13 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 11 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Cheap, widely available microcontroller whose programmable PIO state machines and generous RAM give people good value for hobby and embedded work. Critics note weak analog features and limited tamper resistance.

## Why people recommend it

- Good value for the price (8 comments): "With a similarly priced (sometimes cheaper) platform like the amazing rp2040 / rp2350 which is roughly 100 times more powerful" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46007689)) "I'm transitioning to rp2350 as it's just better suited for that kind of work, easier to find and cheaper." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46417988)) "you can actually buy the raw RP2040 or RP2350 chips (for roughly $1) and make your own custom PCB" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49034904))
- Flexible programmable PIO state machines (7 comments): "5v tolerant IO if set up correctly, enough GPIO's and the PIO's to trigger everything at once, and more than enough speed to emulate flash." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48210499)) "The new RP 2350 has an enhanced PIO that relaxes some of the constraints the author ran into here." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46892859)) "If you need a programmable IO state machine (or twelve) then you need the RP2350, period." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48333863))
- Strong performance and extra RAM (5 comments): "some of those shortcomings have already been addressed in rp2350, with double sram (520KB at this price point!)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45780851)) "RP2350 has a hardware FPU and much more processing capability, so supports more channels and filters" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47927936)) "you wont have any performance problems like with 200MHz pic. Downside is lack of usb 2.0" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47422134))
- Good docs and support libraries (2 comments): "has lots of nifty support libraries available, and will definitely do better than the teensy 3.2" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46617350)) "PIO, high-quality datasheet, nice ecosystem, etc." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48312662))

## What people warn about

- Weak analog and ADC features (4 comments): "It doesn't come close to being able to do interesting things like LVDS ADCs or actual high speed memory interfaces because of the bit width requirement" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45784722)) "ESP32 and RP2350 have pretty crap or nearly non-existent analog." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49766694)) "The ADCs on RP2040/2350 only have 12 bit resolution." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47921036))
- Basic security, not tamper-resistant (3 comments): "The RP2350 just adds some bog-standard security features the ESP32 family and plenty of others have had for ages" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49767452)) "Because it's inexpensive and not designed to be tamper-resistant." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49759244)) "the RP2350 itself had its protection defeated by fault injection" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50100308))
- Limited IO, timers and RAM (2 comments): "The RP2000 series is quite disappointing IO-wise: no timers, barely any ADC, no touch sensors, no CAN" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49327600)) "It has very few RAM to emulate PC's/higher end Classic Macs." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46346373))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Baochip-1x](https://hackerapproved.com/p/baochip-1x.md): 15 recommend

## Where to get it

- [See price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Raspberry+Pi+RP2350+microcontroller&tag=hackerapprove-20) (affiliate link)
- [Official site](https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/rp2350/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Raspberry Pi RP2350", https://hackerapproved.com/p/rp2350/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).