[HN Gopher] Compare Single Board Computers
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Compare Single Board Computers
Author : todsacerdoti
Score : 92 points
Date : 2025-10-19 18:02 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (sbc.compare)
(TXT) w3m dump (sbc.compare)
| HeyMeco wrote:
| Love when actually useful sites appear. Fits the same category of
| sites like the one LTTLabs is working on
| cjs_ac wrote:
| Similar (but without comparisons): https://hackerboards.com/
| MartijnBraam wrote:
| Uuh hackerboards has comparisons, for example
| https://hackerboards.com/compare/raspberry-pi-foundation-ras...
| hackingonempty wrote:
| Looks cool but no microcontroller boards yet. I didn't get any
| results for "RP2350" for example.
| Neywiny wrote:
| Those aren't SBCs
| hackingonempty wrote:
| what is the difference?
| okanat wrote:
| Benchmarks are alright but as an embedded engineer I first select
| a performance segment and then actually prioritize the hardware
| abilities and engineering support from the SoC manufacturer.
|
| Before getting into benchmarks I would actually look which
| hardware capabilities a specific SoC supports first (eDP, HDMI or
| LVDS, USB ports, i2c, GPIO pins etc). Then I would check whether
| the manufacturer actually maintains mainline Linux kernel drivers
| or keeps an up-to-date downstream kernel. I look at their
| frequency for updates. For media systems having HW acceleration
| is crucial. Most ARM vendors do a crappy job of providing good
| open source drivers for this.
|
| Similarly I go and check their Yocto BSPs. If I don't like their
| organization, that's going to affect my final decision. If it is
| a power-sensitive project, then the special modes and extra
| driver support for various sleeping modes come into play.
|
| (Most of the time Intel just wins with those criteria because ARM
| ecosystem is a mess of proprietary blobs. However there are
| manufacturers like NXP and MediaTek who do release passable
| drivers and when power consumption is important they get selected
| or if the product is very price-sensitvie)
|
| This website looks alright maybe for hobbyists for pure CPU loads
| with very well cooled systems. I don't find it very useful
| without the actual engineering details, adding those would
| massively benefit the website.
| sthlmb wrote:
| Hey! So I was quite surprised to see my site posted on here so
| soon after hitting the "go live" button, and thanks for your
| comment.
|
| I wrote a blog post about why I made the site at
| https://bret.dk/introducing-sbc-compare/ if anyone's
| interested, but to TL;DR it, I didn't set out to create a site
| like this, it was a side quest after creating the automation
| and database to support my reviews, which do indeed focus on
| the hobbyist trying to explore Raspberry Pi SBCs and their many
| alternatives.
|
| I have full specifications and hardware capabilities hidden
| behind a feature flag at the moment as I'm working my way
| through adding all of that data (currently at 80 SBCs in the
| database, and I'm only adding those I own and have run tests
| on) so there should be something similar to what you're asking
| for soon. Thanks again!
| leeoniya wrote:
| if LattePanda for $178 is on the list might as well throw in the
| Quieter 4C:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/MeLE-Mini-Quieter-4C-Astrophotography...
|
| very impressive N100 device. i run EndeavourOS with KDE/plasma on
| mine. i swapped out to a faster and more efficient single sided
| 4TB nvme.
|
| it's fanless and idles at ~4.5W according to the USB-C cable's
| lcd power readout.
| pizza234 wrote:
| The quite renowned Odroid Hx are also missing.
| sthlmb wrote:
| I guess I'll reply here and cover both of the comments :D
| There are currently 80 SBCs in the database, and they're all
| boards that I've obtained over the last few years. It's a
| side project/hobby and buying many more boards would be a
| very expensive affair :( New boards will be a mixture of
| those that interest me, and those that vendors (very kindly)
| send to be included on the website. Sadly, as much as I'd
| love to, I can't do a Pokemon and catch them all, so there
| will be some missing!
| aspenmayer wrote:
| Do you accept donations of hardware to be tested and added
| to the site?
| sthlmb wrote:
| I do accept them from vendors directly (and it has no
| bearing on how I run the tests) but I've not taken any
| from individuals before. I'm not quite sure how I'd do
| that logistically, but if there's something interesting
| then I'm open to discussing it!
|
| I'm currently in talks with a few of the vendors to start
| filling the database with missing boards from their
| ranges so we should have more data available in the
| coming weeks. There should be 2 BeagleBoard (Eco Green
| and PocketBeagle 2) arriving tomorrow/Tuesday to expand
| their range on the site!
| aspenmayer wrote:
| As for donations from individuals, I have seen folks who
| do this kind of thing get a P.O. Box or use a mailbox
| service provider/remailer[0] to maintain their opsec,
| though that is an added expense. It would likely be
| easier to accept donations earmarked for equipment
| purchases, but that requires a bit of trust and
| reputation, but you have to begin where you are, which is
| pretty good so far, as you are doing your own tests on
| your own equipment in your possession. I'm sure many
| would be willing and able to donate funds and/or
| hardware, if the option were presented to them, but I
| don't know if that is worth the added efforts involved in
| engaging with the community.
|
| Directly engaging with vendors for donations is somewhat
| fraught with concerns of its own, as ideally you are
| doing blind purchases so that vendors can't give you
| known-good units, but rather are giving you units that
| the vendor doesn't already know are going to be subject
| to enhanced scrutiny.
|
| Maybe get in touch with the OpenWRT folks to see if you
| can test the _OpenWRT One_? I believe they're using a
| modified BananaPi design.
|
| https://openwrt.org/toh/openwrt/one
|
| > OpenWrt One is based on the MediaTek Filogic 820 SoC
| and has WiFi 6, dual-band, 3x3/2x2, 1x 2.5Gbit WAN, 1x
| 1Gbit LAN, 1GB DDR4 RAM, 256 MiB NAND, 16 MiB NOR (for
| recovery), M.2 SSD, USB-C Serial console and USB 2.0.
| Power Over Ethernet (POE): an IEEE 802.3af/at compliant
| device can power the device via the RJ-45 2.5 Gbps WAN
| connector.
|
| https://docs.banana-pi.org/en/OpenWRT-
| One/BananaPi_OpenWRT-O...
|
| > OpenWrt One uses Mediatek's MT7981B SoC with a dual-arm
| Cortex-a53 core at 1.3 GHz, 1 GB DDR4 RAM and 256 MiB SPI
| NAND storage. It also integrates 16 MiB of additional
| protected storage as a system backup, dual storage
| hardware to ensure that the onboard system is
| unbrickable, and finally integrated M.2. 2230/2242 NVMe
| PCIe 2 X1 ports can be used to add external storage. And
| with a battery holder for an internal clock, OpenWrt One
| offers a USB 2.0 Type-A and a mikroBUS expansion port to
| provide more interfaces to a host of technical
| possibilities
|
| > OpenWrt One is the first board design with OpenWrt
| opensource communtity.and designed in collaboration with
| Banana Pi that will also handle manufacturing and
| distribution of the router board. The OpenWrt
| One/AP-24.XY router should provide a source of income for
| the project, for example, to cover the cost of hosting
| and OpenWrt conferences, with Banana Pi selling the board
| through their distribution network, and for every device
| sold, donating to the Software Freedom Conservancy (SDC)
| with the funds earmarked for OpenWrt.
|
| [0] Techlore on YouTube interviewed the operator of such
| a service in the video linked below. I won't name the
| company as this is not a review or endorsement (pun
| intended), as I have not used their service, nor can I
| speak to their operations, but the interview is a decent
| explainer of the service itself from the point of view of
| an operator of such a service, and other competitors in
| that field are also named.
|
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=idSBvjaaFSk
| sthlmb wrote:
| I do have a ko-fi available in the footer of the website,
| and if someone wants their donation to go towards a
| specific piece of hardware then I'll most certainly do
| what I can to honour that, or return it if I can't.
|
| On the samples from vendors front, yeah, that's
| definitely a concern, though in the years I've been
| working with manufacturers and had samples from them, I'm
| fairly confident that no "golden sample" binning is going
| on as I've had quite a few shockers, hah! Not to say that
| it couldn't/wouldn't happen, I wouldn't want to introduce
| that doubt. Perhaps, like my review website, I should add
| a quick note/indicator of whether a board was obtained
| directly from a vendor, or if it was purchased.
| aspenmayer wrote:
| > I do have a ko-fi available in the footer of the
| website, and if someone wants their donation to go
| towards a specific piece of hardware then I'll most
| certainly do what I can to honour that, or return it if I
| can't.
|
| That's pretty good of you to mention, as I didn't notice
| the footer when I visited to see if you already had
| tested the OpenWRT One before posting my suggestion to
| test it. Perhaps you could mention that you would make a
| best effort to test hardware suggested by donors, if you
| haven't already done so on the site? I approve of you
| asking for donations openly, as your time and efforts are
| worth something to you and to visitors, and if you
| communicate that it's a two-way street, with some
| incentives to donors in that they can help suggest what
| you spend their donations on, I think that your
| transparency and good faith are more likely to be
| rewarded with more and larger donations that a simple
| "buy me a coffee" pitch might otherwise attract.
|
| > Perhaps, like my review website, I should add a quick
| note/indicator of whether a board was obtained directly
| from a vendor, or if it was purchased.
|
| I think such a disclaimer/disclosure would assuage (m)any
| concerns most folks would have on that front!
|
| You seem to have a good grasp on what you're doing here.
| Do you share/open source your testing methodology and/or
| code run to derive your data?
| blopp99 wrote:
| Did the up in price on RPis ended up being permanent?
| IshKebab wrote:
| None of it really matters until there's a competitor that has
| software support 1/10th as good as Raspberry Pi.
| sthlmb wrote:
| Check out Libre Computer if you haven't already!
| hackingonempty wrote:
| TI's "Beagle" ecosystem has software support at least 1/10th as
| good as RPI, maybe even 2/10ths.
| eqvinox wrote:
| No searching by PCIe support it seems :'(
|
| (Or I'm too stupid to use it.)
|
| btw: https://geizhals.eu/?cat=mbarm - but also no search by PCIe
| there
| sthlmb wrote:
| I have full specification capability hiding in the background
| and once I've filled out all of the data, you'll be able to do
| just this!
| iancarroll wrote:
| Clicking on "ARM" only seems to show Raspberry Pi's and not the
| other ARM boards listed on the site.
| sthlmb wrote:
| I've noticed a couple of issues with the search and filtering
| this evening, I'll have to look at it tomorrow. In the
| meantime, https://sbc.compare/arm (there's also /risc-v and
| /x86) may help a little here!
| iancarroll wrote:
| That's a nice list, thanks!
| geerlingguy wrote:
| I'm happy to see this exist; I've considered putting together
| something similar using the data I compile for https://sbc-
| reviews.jeffgeerling.com/ - but it's surprisingly complex.
|
| One of the hardest things is settling on specific tests, and
| ensuring tests are run in an extremely standardized environment.
| I do my best, but a test lab I am not.
|
| It's good to have a quick way to get relative comparisons, even
| if imperfect.
| sthlmb wrote:
| And until you decide to execute on that plan, I'll enjoy this
| little bit of attention :D Thanks again for the support!
| franga2000 wrote:
| Performance is cool, but if you're already building a giant
| database of SBC information, I/O, peripherals and features seem
| like a much more important thing to add.
|
| Just in the Orange Pi lineup, there are so many different models
| and so little structured information about them, that the best
| source still seems to be the google sheet that I created in 2017
| and has been continously updated by various community members
| over the years [0]. And that's all one manufacturer!
|
| Things like which type and how many video outs, USB ports, if it
| has onboard flash, DSI/CSI, pinout compatibility... are so much
| more important and so much harder to get than performance
| numbers, which usually boil down to the SoC plus a small margin
| for thermal and power design of the board.
|
| If this site were open source (and time + knowledge of stack
| permitting), I'd take a stab at adding a way to include that info
| as well, maybe even through crowd-sourcing.
|
| [0]
| https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14QDXdMR1a1kc0gpRpTzI...
| sthlmb wrote:
| I hear you! Like I mention to others in the thread, this
| functionality is already there, I just need to finish
| populating all of the data. To get over a mental block I had to
| decide whether I'd continue trying to add each feature before
| an initial launch (and be there forever) or give myself a shot
| of motivation by getting an initial performance comparison
| feature set out there and iterate as I go along.
|
| As soon as I have all of that data in there (I think I'm at
| around 30-40% so far, the initial batch of testing has been a
| slog, data entry for this took a back seat) I'll be enabling
| that option and it will all be there to view on comparison
| pages, and search for to help find/compare on a deeper level.
| franga2000 wrote:
| I completely get it, it's great that you launched it quickly,
| I've gotten stuck on that before too, where I just kept
| working on a thing to make it "ready for launch" until I ran
| out of steam and never ended up launching it.
|
| It's a really cool site, I'll defenitely be keeping an eye on
| it and if you ever go the crowdsourcing route, hopefully also
| contribute.
|
| And I'm sorry for being yet another lazy HN commenter who
| didn't read far enough down the thread before opening their
| mouth (keyboard?) :)
| logicallee wrote:
| to the author: thanks for making this. Can you tell us about how
| long it took you to develop this site, and what technology stack
| you use for it? How did you make it?
| amelius wrote:
| Question. Are the RPi, Orange Pi, etc. suitable for use in
| professional hardware, or are these considered hobbyist products?
| sthlmb wrote:
| Raspberry Pi products can be found in a lot of
| industrial/professional setups, especially things like their
| compute module range(s) that can be dropped into off-the-shelf,
| or custom carrier boards. Others can be a bit more hit and
| miss, though Libre Computer are up there with great software
| support, and will have their own compute modules available
| soon.
| sowbug wrote:
| Feature request: if the cells in a row are all identical, either
| exclude the row, de-emphasize it, or merge the cells so it's
| visually apparent that they're all the same.
|
| Example: Raspberry Pi 4 vs Raspberry Pi 5
| (https://sbc.compare/9-raspberry-pi-4-2gb/14-raspberry-
| pi-5-4...). Architecture is ARM. But it's repeated for each
| column, which makes the reader have to look carefully at each
| cell to see whether it really is different.
|
| This is a pet peeve, particularly when a company's "compare
| versions" page lists dozens of identical dimensions across the
| product line, making finding the differences into a dreary
| where's-Waldo game.
| sthlmb wrote:
| Good point! Added to my to-do list :)
| foofoo12 wrote:
| I noticed Luckfox Pico Mini isn't included there. Runs Linux. Few
| bucks on AliExpress: https://www.luckfox.com/Luckfox-Pico-Mini-A
| tuatoru wrote:
| Idle power and sleep power are important for embedded
| applications.
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(page generated 2025-10-19 23:00 UTC)