The Raspberry Pi is no longer the obvious DIY choice

For years, the Raspberry Pi was the automatic recommendation for any DIY computing project. If you wanted to build a home server, run Home Assistant, set up Pi-hole, or experiment with Linux on cheap hardware, the answer was simple: buy a Raspberry Pi.

But Raspberry Pi isn't the smartest for Linux projects anymore, and due to a combination of factors, it's not the obvious DIY choice either. Prices have gone up, the total cost of a usable setup is much higher than the advertised board price, and the alternatives are now much better than they used to be.

The budget board isn't so budget anymore

Rising prices have chipped away at one of the Raspberry Pi's biggest selling points

Amir Bohlooli / MUO

Amir Bohlooli / MUO

Amir Bohlooli / MUO

Amir Bohlooli / MUO

Amir Bohlooli / MUO

Close Amir Bohlooli / MUO

Amir Bohlooli / MUO

Amir Bohlooli / MUO

Amir Bohlooli / MUO

Amir Bohlooli / MUO

When it first launched in September 2023, the Raspberry Pi 5 was priced at $60 for the 4 GB variant, $80 for the 8 GB variant, and $120 for the 16 GB variant. However, if you're looking to pick one up today, the 8 GB variant alone can cost as much as $200 on Adafruit. The 4 GB variant, hailed as the sensible budget option, is selling for well over $100 across retailers, and the top-of-the-line 16 GB Raspberry Pi 5 can go as high as $300—that is, if you can find one in stock.

Part of the reason for this price hike is the DRAM shortage that hit the semiconductor industry in late 2025. What began as a modest price bump in December 2025 has since snowballed into a series of rather aggressive price hikes that have made the latest Raspberry Pi 5 a bit of an aspirational product. The Raspberry Pi Foundation did introduce a $50 entry-level 1 GB model to preserve some of its original spirit, but you're not running a satisfying Linux desktop on 1 GB of RAM in 2026.

The Raspberry Pi 4 and 5 are still extremely functional, capable machines. But cheap used to mean you could pick one up on impulse. At $200 for the 8 GB variant, the Raspberry Pi is still cheap when you consider the larger computer market, but it's no longer an impulse buy. You also need to buy a microSD card, power supply, and ideally a case separately, considering you already have a keyboard, mouse, and display to get the entire setup working.

Raspberry Pi 4 Brand Raspberry CPU Broadcom BCM2711, Quad core Cortex-A72 (ARM v8) 64-bit SoC @ 1.5GHz Memory 4GB LPDDR4-3200 SDRAM Ports 2 USB 3.0 ports, 2 USB 2.0 ports, 2 micro-HDMI ports (up to 4kp60 supported) Raspberry Pi 4 is a compact single-board computer with a quad-core ARM processor, up to 8GB of RAM, dual 4K display support, and Gigabit Ethernet, making it suitable for everything from DIY servers to desktop computing and electronics projects.

Tiny desktops became serious contenders

Affordable mini PCs now offer more power, storage, and upgradeability for many DIY projects

Photo by James Bruce / MakeUseOf

The strongest challenge to the Raspberry Pi doesn't come from one of its cheaper single-board competitors anymore. It now comes from low-cost x86 mini PCs built around Intel chips like the N100. These small systems have become surprisingly affordable, especially on the second-hand market, and many of them ship with enough RAM, built-in storage, a case, and a power supply included from day one.

That matters because the comparison is no longer between a $35 board and a much more expensive desktop replacement. It is often between a fully assembled mini PC and a Raspberry Pi setup that still needs accessories before it becomes usable. When the price gap gets small, the performance gaps start to matter a lot more.

Speaking of performance, the mini PCs almost always win, and comfortably so. N100 systems are ahead in raw compute performance, storage flexibility, and workload handling. For people running multiple Docker containers, a media server, or heavier self-hosted applications, that extra headroom can make the system feel less like a project board and more like a real, small server.

Raw speed isn't the whole story

ARM software compatibility can catch you off guard

Photo by Yadullah Abidi | No Attribution Required.

Performance aside, software compatibility plays a major role too. The Raspberry PI uses ARM, which is much better supported today than it used to be, but it still runs into the occasional issue with container images, software packages, and niche apps that assume x86 support first. Mini PCs avoid much of that friction because x86 remains the default target for a huge amount of software.

That difference is especially visible in home lab use. On a Pi, there's still a chance that a container image doesn't support ARM properly, or that setup requires extra tweaking. On an x86 mini PC, many of these small annoyances just don't exist. They can save a lot of time, and for many DIY builders like myself, that saved time is just as valuable as money. Not to mention, it makes setup simpler as well, a hurdle that can trip up many beginners.

Media workloads are another example. Intel N100 and similar systems benefit from Quick Sync, which gives them a clear edge in video transcoding tasks. If the goal is to run Jellyfin or Plex for a household with mixed devices and formats, a mini PC often makes more sense than trying to stretch a Pi into a role it was never built to dominate.

The Raspberry Pi still excels where it counts

Embedded projects, robotics, IoT, and hardware hacking remain its natural home turf

Photo by Yadullah Abidi | No Attribution Required.

None of this is to say that Raspberry Pis are irrelevant. Even the Raspberry Pi that everyone stopped talking about, the Pi 3B+, can still be quite capable if you've got low-performance tasks to run, like simpler Docker containers or self-hosted services within reason, like Home Assistant or Pi-hole.

A Raspberry Pi has features that mini PCs don't, the obvious one being GPIO. If the project involves relays, motors, sensors, robotics displays, low-level hardware control, or embedded experimentation, the Pi still is the right tool. It is also a strong fit for lightweight, always-on tasks where low power draw and physical size matter more than just compute power.

In other words, the Raspberry Pi still makes sense when the build is truly hardware-centric. What has changed, however, is that many people, including myself, were using it as a general-purpose tiny computer simply because it was the most obvious option. Now that better options exist for that role, the Pi is no longer the obvious choice and is being pushed back toward the niche it serves best.

There are more good alternatives than ever

Raspberry Pi isn't the king of the hill of single-board computers anymore

Banana Pi Credit: Banana Pi

Orange Pi Credit: Orange Pi

Orange Pi Credit: Orange Pi

Image taken from Libre Computer website. Credit: Libre Computer

Photo by Yadullah Abidi | No Attribution Required.

Close Banana Pi Credit: Banana Pi

Orange Pi Credit: Orange Pi

Orange Pi Credit: Orange Pi

Image taken from Libre Computer website. Credit: Libre Computer

Photo by Yadullah Abidi | No Attribution Required.

Within the niche of single-board computers and microcontrollers, other ARM boards are also giving tough competition to the pi. There are plenty of Raspberry Pi alternatives that are cheaper and work just as well, and even microcontrollers like the ESP32 family can be quite handy depending on what you're actually trying to do.

Orange Pi, Banana Pi, Rock 5B, Odroid M2, and even the older Raspberry Pi 3B+ are often available for much cheaper, and are no longer obscure experiments for only the most patient tinkerers. Some of them now offer better performance per dollar than the Pi, especially for more technically advanced users who are willing to put up with weaker documentation and less polished ecosystems.

But if you're a beginner to the world of DIY tech, this is where the Raspberry Pi's premium might still be worth it. The software support, community guides, accessories, and troubleshooting resources are often much better than what rivals provide. The ecosystem has real value, but it's no longer enough to make every single competitor feel like a compromise.

Orange Pi 3B Brand Orange Pi CPU Rockchip RK3566 Memory 2GB/4GB/8GB (LPDDR4/4X) Operating System Orange Pi OS, Ubuntu, Debian, Android Orange Pi 3B is a versatile single-board computer powered by the Rockchip RK3566 processor, featuring Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NVMe SSD support, and enough performance for home labs, media servers, and general Linux projects.

That's good news for makers

The Raspberry Pi didn't get worse, you finally have meaningful choices

Raspberry Pis haven't suddenly become bad. They're just as good as they always were. But due to high prices and stiff competition from both mini PCs and other single-board computers alike, DIY builders now finally have real options. A few years ago, recommending a Pi for almost anything was easy because the alternatives were either too expensive, too obscure, or too awkward to recommend to most people. That is no longer true.

And that is why the Raspberry Pi is no longer the obvious DIY choice. It remains one of the most important hobbyist computers ever made, but it no longer wins automatically. The Pi's legendary status is both well-earned and deserved. But before you spend $200 for a single-board computer that you may or may not use once you're done playing with it, it's worth asking whether that money could buy you something more powerful, more compatible, and likely just as affordable.