I know what you’re thinking. “But the Raspberry Pi is way too expensive now.” and “there are so many other alternatives.” I will admit right off the bat that there’s some truth to both of these statements.

My colleague Tim Brookes makes a good argument that the Raspberry Pi’s 15-year reign is ending. That argument, too, has merit. The market has changed considerably. ESP32s can cover a lot of the low-end computing jobs that used to go to Pis. I’ve argued myself that most people who need a cheap computer would be better off buying old used office PCs. Yet, if a Pi is the right tool for the job, then there hasn’t been a better time to buy one.

Raspberry Pi is expensive, but is it really “too expensive?”

Price is just a number, not value

Hopping on Amazon to check the price of an 8GB Raspberry Pi while writing this yields a shocking $200 asking price for just the bare board. That’s fully double what I paid for my own 8GB Pi 5 just over a year ago. That is not an impulse buy, and the main culprit of this price increase is the cost of memory. AI demand for memory has had a devastating impact on consumer electronics. Gaming consoles have received multiple price increases at a point where they’d usually receive price cuts. Laptop makers are regressing back to 8GB of RAM as the baseline.

So it’s not the fault of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, but blame doesn’t matter when the final price is that high. This unusual situation is why a 1GB Raspberry Pi 5 exists. But, that doesn’t mean a $200 Raspberry Pi is poor value for money. It just means that the spectrum of jobs for which this SBC is the right tool at that price has shrunk. You have alternatives (including older, cheaper Pis) and there are going to be some projects that need this specific mix of features, expansion support, size, power, and performance. It might be twice the price now, but it can still be a good deal for the right reasons.

Brand

Raspberry Pi

Storage

8GB

It’s only recommended for tech-savvy users, but the Raspberry Pi 5 is a tinkerer’s dream. Cheap, highly customizable, and with great onboard specs, it’s a solid base for your next mini PC.

Modern Raspberry Pis are powerful enough to replace “real” computers for many jobs

It’s a small miracle, honestly

The truth is that the latest and greatest Raspberry Pi 5 is overkill for just about every project most people would use one for. It’s why I “downgraded” my Pi 5 that I’d been using as a retro CRT-connected media PC to a Pi 4. Well, that, and it’s easier to set up a native analog video output on the Pi 4.

Credit: Sydney Louw Butler / How-To Geek

This Pi 4 might have half the processing power, no active cooling and only 1GB of RAM, but it does the same job as my 8GB actively-cooled Pi 5, so why waste the more expensive machine on this job?

This is why the significantly increased cost of the Pi 5 doesn’t bother me that much. Most of us bought them when they were cheap, but used only a fraction of the performance. A Pi 4, Pi 3, Pi Zero, or in some cases even an ESP32 can all do most of those jobs at a fraction of the price.

The Raspberry Pi ecosystem has become enormous

Projects galore

Regardless of hardware cost increases, or how much competition there is, if you own a Raspberry Pi today, you have access to an enormous range of accessories, hardware, software, and documentation all geared towards the Pi ecosystem.

If you opt for one of the alternatives (and there’s nothing wrong with that), it really shouldn’t be to save money on the hardware side. Because any money you save upfront doesn’t make up for the increased difficulty of finding the parts, information, or software you need to get a project working.

Yes, this is a side effect of the Pi’s first-mover advantage, but just because we know why it has this advantage, it does nothing to take the actual advantage away. And this is just official support from formal companies and developers.

You also can’t ignore the value of the community and all the work that’s been done by other Pi owners over the years that will save you time and money. Whatever you need to do with a Raspberry Pi, someone else has probably already done it or done something close to it. It’s unlikely that any other hobbyist computer board will ever build up to a similar state. So today we stand on the shoulders of giants, and that’s why it’s still the best time in history to own a Raspberry Pi.