[altmind]

esp32 boards(not a devboard, but rpi is not a devboard too) starts from $4.42 with free shipping on aliexpress. yet you are right - less ports, slower, less memory, no linux and a different microarchitecture.

[thinkmassive]

ESP32 without a devkit is just a surface mount chip. It would be more fair to compare that with the RPi’s SoC alone.