Are you shopping for an SBC right now? There are tons to choose from, but the conventional choice is a Raspberry Pi device. It isn't your only option, though, and looking into alternatives is worth your while.
Raspberry Pi devices are getting more expensive (again)
In direct response to skyrocketing RAM prices, the Raspberry Pi company announced they were raising prices on Pi boards this month. Most were jumping by $5 or $10, but the Raspberry Pi 5 with 16GB of RAM climbed a whopping $25.
This comes after years of pricing roller coasters. Raspberry Pi devices sold by third-party retailers became infamously expensive in the early 2020s due to semiconductor shortages. That happened because of the era's cryptocurrency craze, and now, thanks to the current AI craze, we have yet another shortage ratcheting up the cost of "affordable" computers.
It's not clear right now if or when Raspberry Pi computers will get more affordable. Given that a major manufacturer has exited the consumer PC market , though, I don't have high hopes.
These prices don't hike
In contrast, there are alternative SBCs that were priced initially lower than similar Pi devices and have since barely budged, if at all. I'm talking about RISC-V boards.
These aren't a specific brand of SBC but rather a CPU architecture. You see, Raspberry Pi and its competitors almost always use some type of Arm processor, but a few Pi competitors now offer SBCs that swap out the Arm processor for one with another architecture called RISC-V.
While shopping for SBCs, I checked the pricing history of popular RISC-V boards and their closest Raspberry Pi cousins in terms of RAM and clock speed. The contrast is surprising.
For example, the 2GB RAM version of the Orange Pi RV2 , a RISC-V board similar to the Raspberry Pi 3B, arrived in March 2025 at a cool $42 on Amazon. Since then, the price tag has stayed flat.
Compare that to the 2GB edition of the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B , a mainstay in the Pi lineup. Its earliest listed price on Amazon was $60, starting out $18 more expensive than the Orange Pi RV2. Since then, it's bounced up and down, going as low as $57, but skyrocketing recently up to $67. Depending on when you buy it, you're looking at paying almost 60 percent more for a Raspberry Pi 4B over an Orange Pi RV2.
Of course, it isn't the fairest comparison, given the RV2 is less than a year old. It hasn't been facing the headwinds of the market for as long as the 4B.
If you look at most other RISC-V boards, though, it's the same story. The 4GB VisionFive2 board I bought recently, which is well-established with dedicated support across multiple operating systems, is still the same $69 bucks it was when it became available on Amazon two years ago. Pine64's STAR64 RISC-V board also hasn't budged in price since its launch in spring 2023.
Why RISC-V boards are so affordable
Jordan Gloor / How-To Geek
RISC-V is an open-standard Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) that, unlike Arm and most other ISAs, doesn't require manufacturers to pay for or sign legal agreements to use. A portion of every Raspberry Pi sale goes to the Arm Limited company thanks to the royalty fee it charges for use of the ARM64 instruction set. Meanwhile, since the RISC-V instruction set is open source, manufacturers are able to pass savings onto you.
Of course, it's not as if RISC-V boards don't need memory and storage, the two components currently driving up computer prices. So while RISC-V prices are currently unchanged, I don't anticipate that staying true given the current trajectory. If you're considering investing in RISC-V board, I recommend doing it now to get the best deal possible.
Beware of the trade-offs
While I am excited about RISC-V, I'm not going to hide the drawbacks from you. The low cost comes with trade-offs, mostly in the form of software support and optimization. Existing software generally was not programmed to run on RISC-V processors. While a lot of porting work has been done, not everything you can run on a Raspberry Pi can reliably run on a RISC-V board for the moment. Sluggish performance, especially in graphics-oriented and machine learning tasks, is common.
It's best to do your research and stay conscious of your own goals. What do you want to do with your development board? Before making a purchase, do a web search for the board you're considering and the project you want to do. Chances are, someone's already tried it and has written down their experience. Learn from then if your project is possible and what challenges you might face.
I can tell you based on my experience, right out of the box I was able to install the DietPi operating system and get a working Pi-hole instance on my VisionFive 2 board. I saw warnings that the HDMI port would not work, so I was prepared to remote into the board. It turned out, though, that issue had been resolved in the months since that warning was posted, so the process ended up being a breeze with my portable monitor.
Hopefully, the future stays bright for RISC-V
My anecdote about the HDMI port shows that just because something isn't possible on RISC-V yet doesn't mean it never will be. While it isn't fast or reliable enough for mission-critical projects yet, it's an exciting time to get into RISC-V . More hardware is being enabled, and new emulators are filling software gaps, meaning the horizon is widening.
I can't say what SBC prices will look like months from now, but I can tell you that right now a RISC-V development board is a better deal than it's ever been.
