Raspberry Pi RP2350
Hacker ApprovedRanked 4 of 28 microcontrollers by recommenders
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.
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.
60 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 47
- criticize it
- 13
- approval share
- 78%
Recommended in 11 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 47 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 3.6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 11 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
Good value for the price
“With a similarly priced (sometimes cheaper) platform like the amazing rp2040 / rp2350 which is roughly 100 times more powerful”
Comment from 21 Nov 2025 in “Arduino published updated terms and conditions: no longer an open commons” “I'm transitioning to rp2350 as it's just better suited for that kind of work, easier to find and cheaper.”
Comment from 29 Dec 2025 in “OrangePi 6 Plus Review: The New Frontier for ARM64 SBC Performance” “you can actually buy the raw RP2040 or RP2350 chips (for roughly $1) and make your own custom PCB”
Comment from 24 Jul 2026 in “Why Sony Can't Bring Back Its Classic Walkman Models” - Comment from 14 Sep 2026 in “A 386 PC for Your RP2350”
- Comment from 15 Dec 2025 in “Adafruit: Arduino’s Rules Are ‘Incompatible With Open Source’”
- Comment from 20 Feb 2026 in “Raspberry Pi Pico 2 at 873.5MHz with 3.05V Core Abuse”
- Comment from 19 Sep 2026 in “SDCC – Small Device C Compiler”
- Comment from 5 Jun 2026 in “ESP32 Bit Pirate, a Hardware Hacking Tool with WebCLI That Speaks Every Protocol”
Flexible programmable PIO state machines
“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.”
Comment from 20 May 2026 in “Smartmedia Card Spec Opened, available free (2000)” “The new RP 2350 has an enhanced PIO that relaxes some of the constraints the author ran into here.”
Comment from 4 Feb 2026 in “Building a 24-Bit Arcade CRT Display Adapter, from Scratch” “If you need a programmable IO state machine (or twelve) then you need the RP2350, period.”
Comment from 30 May 2026 in “News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development – Jeff Geerling” - Comment from 20 Feb 2026 in “Raspberry Pi Pico 2 at 873.5MHz with 3.05V Core Abuse”
- Comment from 18 Sep 2026 in “Photon-Emission-Guided Laser Fault Injection Enables RP2350 Secure Debug”
- Comment from 26 Jul 2026 in “Running a 28.9M parameter LLM on an $8 microcontroller”
- Comment from 28 May 2026 in “News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development – Jeff Geerling”
Strong performance and extra RAM
“some of those shortcomings have already been addressed in rp2350, with double sram (520KB at this price point!)”
Comment from 1 Nov 2025 on Hacker News “RP2350 has a hardware FPU and much more processing capability, so supports more channels and filters”
Comment from 27 Apr 2026 in “Fully Featured Audio DSP Firmware for the Raspberry Pi Pico” “you wont have any performance problems like with 200MHz pic. Downside is lack of usb 2.0”
Comment from 18 Mar 2026 in “LPT100: A PIC32MZ Emulator for the Iomega ZIP100 Parallel Port Drive” - Comment from 5 Feb 2026 in “Building a 24-Bit Arcade CRT Display Adapter, from Scratch”
- Comment from 23 Mar 2026 in “BIO – The Bao I/O Co-Processor”
Good docs and support libraries
“has lots of nifty support libraries available, and will definitely do better than the teensy 3.2”
Comment from 14 Jan 2026 in “SparkFun Officially Dropping AdaFruit due to CoC Violation” “PIO, high-quality datasheet, nice ecosystem, etc.”
Comment from 28 May 2026 in “News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development – Jeff Geerling”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Weak analog and ADC features
“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”
Comment from 1 Nov 2025 on Hacker News “ESP32 and RP2350 have pretty crap or nearly non-existent analog.”
Comment from 19 Sep 2026 in “SDCC – Small Device C Compiler” “The ADCs on RP2040/2350 only have 12 bit resolution.”
Comment from 27 Apr 2026 in “Fully Featured Audio DSP Firmware for the Raspberry Pi Pico” - Comment from 19 Sep 2026 in “SDCC – Small Device C Compiler”
Basic security, not tamper-resistant
“The RP2350 just adds some bog-standard security features the ESP32 family and plenty of others have had for ages”
Comment from 19 Sep 2026 in “Photon-Emission-Guided Laser Fault Injection Enables RP2350 Secure Debug” “Because it's inexpensive and not designed to be tamper-resistant.”
Comment from 18 Sep 2026 in “Photon-Emission-Guided Laser Fault Injection Enables RP2350 Secure Debug” “the RP2350 itself had its protection defeated by fault injection”
Comment from 15 Oct 2026 in “It took me nine years to hack my Xbox 360” Limited IO, timers and RAM
“The RP2000 series is quite disappointing IO-wise: no timers, barely any ADC, no touch sensors, no CAN”
Comment from 17 Aug 2026 in “A 3rd World Embedded Engineer Responds to "RISC-V They Should Have Known Better"” “It has very few RAM to emulate PC's/higher end Classic Macs.”
Comment from 21 Dec 2025 in “Fuzix on a Raspberry Pi Pico”
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 RP2350This page | 47 | 13 | 78% | 11 | — | Approved |
| Raspberry Pi RP2040 | 29 | 5 | 85% | 10 | — | Approved |
What people said
40 of the 74 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“the RP2350 itself had its protection defeated by fault injection”
“RP2350 doesn't have a DAC or Comparator.”
“The RP2350 just adds some bog-standard security features the ESP32 family and plenty of others have had for ages”
“ESP32 and RP2350 have pretty crap or nearly non-existent analog.”
“far less effort these days, and give much better value”
“They had a bounty when it launched to find similar vulnerabilities and they worked to patch the ones that were found.”
“Because it's inexpensive and not designed to be tamper-resistant.”
“The RP2350's secure enclave made it particularly attractive for use as a Yubikey alternative.”
“some very useful (and somewhat unusual) features in its PIO blocks”
“It costs a fraction of the competition and you can use just about any pin for anything you want!”
“The RP2350 is probably the most underrated microcontroller available today.”
“Achieving generation time of just 5s is pretty impressive on this hardware.”
“The RP2000 series is quite disappointing IO-wise: no timers, barely any ADC, no touch sensors, no CAN”
“never underestimate the power of controlling the whole pipeline”
“you can actually buy the raw RP2040 or RP2350 chips (for roughly $1) and make your own custom PCB”
“the only memory-mapped QSPI unit I've encountered so far that I've not been able to crash or hang”
“I'm sure you can ask Claude to vibe code something on RP2350 nowadays”
“the RP2350 is a bit more BOM-friendly, imho”
“If you need a programmable IO state machine (or twelve) then you need the RP2350, period.”
“an RP2350 or ESP32 is probably better for anything embedded or battery powered”
“PIO, high-quality datasheet, nice ecosystem, etc.”
“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.”
“would strongly prefer open hardware like the RP2XXX family over a commercial chip like the ESP”
“RP2350 has a hardware FPU and much more processing capability, so supports more channels and filters”
“The ADCs on RP2040/2350 only have 12 bit resolution.”
“RP2350 is capable of reading IOs at 400Mbps”
“you wont have any performance problems like with 200MHz pic. Downside is lack of usb 2.0”
“PIO units may be tricky to configure, but they're incredibly versatile.”
“Both the RP2040 and the RP2350 are amazing value these days”
“It's honestly surprising how robust the RP2350 was under such extreme experimentation”
“would dominate the Z80 in literally every way”
“The new RP 2350 has an enhanced PIO that relaxes some of the constraints the author ran into here.”
“has lots of nifty support libraries available, and will definitely do better than the teensy 3.2”
“I wish I could buy RP2350 with the ARM cores being hard-fused disabled, "cheaper" since no ARM royalties would have to be paid.”
“I'm transitioning to rp2350 as it's just better suited for that kind of work, easier to find and cheaper.”
“It has very few RAM to emulate PC's/higher end Classic Macs.”
“If the RP peripherals meet your needs I agree that's a great value”
“With a similarly priced (sometimes cheaper) platform like the amazing rp2040 / rp2350 which is roughly 100 times more powerful”
“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”
“some of those shortcomings have already been addressed in rp2350, with double sram (520KB at this price point!)”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.