Comment by atwrk
3 hours ago
At its core those all ESP32 are microcontrollers with RISC-V cores[0] and integrated wifi. There's a plethora of peripheral configurations, hence all those ESP32-* variations. This one even has Gbit ethernet and audio, bit still, at it's core (hah), RISC-V with only a few hundred MHz and 512kB RAM. So the peripherals are now similar to a Raspberry Pi, but not the CPU part itself.
[0] older versions had Xtensa cores, not RISC-V.
The most common ESP32 boards now are still the Xtensa ones. Not all of the variants have WiFi. Some only have one core. A lot more variants than many would expect.
Comparisons to a Raspberry Pi are a stretch IMO. It is not a single board computer. You can't hook it up to a monitor/TV, plug a mouse and keyboard in, and use it as a Linux PC. However, there are people who use Raspberry Pis like a microcontroller because of its GPIOs... but they should all be using microcontrollers instead.
It's worth noting that just because it says ESP32, doesn't mean it has WiFi (see the P4), and yeah not just RISC-V but also xtensa. I think it's more synonymous with "has a very shitty ADC" imo.