Comment by everforward

I don’t hear people suggesting to replace an RPi with a similar device (OrangePi or what not).

What I hear a _lot_ is that the thing could have been an esp32 (or Arduino rarely).

That’s a way wider price gap. I can order Costco-sized lots of esp32’s for the price of a single RPi.

RPis pricing has really, really narrowed the space where their products make sense. Low power devices can be esp32, high power can be x86 NUC things (or interconnected esp32s if you need tons of pins).

I don’t encounter a ton of things in “too big for an esp32 but I’m positive I don’t even want the option of a beefier x86 CPU”.

No hate if it works for you. I don’t even dislike RPi, they’re just in a narrower band for me these days.