[codingpanic]

While I agree with andrewstuart, there are not many other boards with the community, developer support, and ecosystem backing that Rpi has. Unfortunately, they really put the work in early to make sure they were positioned well in the ARM SBC space. (The fact that you can run some workstation loads with 4 or 8GB of ram on Pi is a bonus)

I'm hoping with Risc-V boards coming out, that maybe the cycle can start new and someone else can build a similar community, but actually value them.

[andrewstuart]

If you can make do with a microcontroller then the esp32 has excellent software.

Alternatively maybe buy ex business/government mini machines for less than $35 off eBay. Intel CPUs have better software than rpi.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/224882648354?hash=item345c0ce522:g:...

[explorigin]

Did you read the description? That $35 computer you linked has "no memory, no cpu, no hard drive".

[codingpanic]

As far as buying cheap government computers goes... price is only one factor here. Formfactor and power use are huge wins with ARM SBCs.