Raspberry Pi 5 – 16GB RAM

Once that was established, the conversation landed on segmentation. The 16GB Pi 5 was treated as a niche SKU for people who truly need that memory on a Pi, not as the representative product. Lower-memory Pi 5s, Pi 4 1GB boards, Pi Zero 2 W, and Pico-class microcontrollers still fit the original “small Linux box” or embedded project role much better on price. Plenty of people said most hobby projects never needed a Pi 5 in the first place, and that rising prices will push more builders toward ESP32, Pico 2, and similar boards, especially now that AI coding tools make microcontroller work less intimidating. At the same time, many commenters were blunt that if your job is “tiny computer” rather than “Pi-specific embedded device,” the value proposition has collapsed. Used office mini PCs, N100 boxes, old laptops, and fanless x86 systems now offer far more compute, storage, and included parts for similar money. But that did not turn into a full anti-Pi verdict. The strongest defense was that Raspberry Pi’s moat is not raw hardware economics. It is software support, stable Linux and kernel work, GPIO docs, HAT and accessory compatibility, long product availability, and the fact that industrial buyers can build around it and keep shipping. Multiple commenters argued this is already the real business. Hobbyists are loud, but unit volume is now mostly industrial and embedded, which explains why Raspberry Pi keeps selling despite endless complaints that it has “lost the plot.”