Orange Pi Vs Raspberry Pi 3 – Top Comparison

Both the Orange Pi and Raspberry Pi 3 are single board computers. Both are having similar functionalities and features. But, which one is the best and which suits your project requirements the most? Let’s find it here.

Yes, there are plenty of options available in the market to fulfill your electronic or robotic project requirements. It includes essential and useful electronic components, DIY starter kits, project tutorials and documentations, and much more. Having a top circuit board not only creates more interest in your project but also makes it more useful and output driven. So it is good to pick up the right SBC in your gatherings. And this comparison of Orange Pi Vs Raspberry Pi will help you in that.

Raspberry Pi 3

The primary version of Raspberry Pi was meant to provide easy education of the electronic circuits and designs to the students and make them interested towards the field. The Pi versions including model A, B, Pi 2, etc. succeeded towards this goal too, but their features and affordable prices made them attractive to the electronic enthusiasts, hobbyists, tinkerers, and even professionals.

Automation, robotics, hardware interaction, monitoring projects, etc. fields are using the different Raspberry Pi versions for creating innovative and useful inventions.

The Raspberry Pi 2 and Raspberry Pi 3 are the first Pi boards coming with quad-core CPUs. These Debian Linux based SBCs are available at unbelievable price tag of under $35! The latter is ten times faster than the former and thus is the most popular Raspberry Pi board today.

Orange Pi

Soon after the popularity of Raspberry Pi kits, many other Single Board Computers introduced in the market at similar prices and with different functions and features. At the end of the year 2016, an another Raspberry Pi clone launched with the name of Orange Pi Plus. It was a trimmed down version of the Pi with the support to different OS platforms like Linux, Android, Ubuntu, and yes, the Raspberry Pi image.

The Orange Pi introduced different versions to compete with Raspberry Pi Foundation like Orange Pi Zero, Orange Pi PC 2, Orange Pi Plus, Orange Pi Prime, etc.

The Orange Pi PC 2 has similar specifications to the Raspberry Pi 3 but lacking some USB ports and doesn’t have inbuilt WiFi like Pi 3. On the other hand, the Orange Pi Plus has an inbuilt eMMC storage, faster networking, and a lot of other heavy features. It requires more time to up and running though and does not have a tremendous community support as the Raspberry Pi has.

The latest Orange Pi Prime can be said as the perfect clone to the Raspberry Pi 3. Coming with the Mali-450 GPU to process 2K videos, and other identical specs and features to Pi 3, the Orange Pi Prime is slightly a better graphics enhancer I can say. Buy it from amazon.

Orange Pi Vs Raspberry Pi 3

Yes, Raspberry Pi is a well-known single board computer today, but recently launched Orange Pi is also putting a large range of the computing board in the market at enraged speed and user-friendly prices. Let’s take a quick look at the Orange Pi Vs Raspberry Pi 3 comparison.

1. The Raspberry Pi has shipped over 12-Million units of different Pi versions till the date. The Orange Pi yet not has such a big number of shipping, but as it came less than a year before and provided customized board, soon it will gain the attention of computing needs.
2. The Orange Pi IoT board is similar to Raspberry Pi Zero W with a 2G support and having a capability to transfer the data at good speed and to longer distances.
3. Both the Orange Pi Prime and Raspberry Pi 3 comes with inbuilt Bluetooth and WiFi for wireless data transmission. Both have Ethernet connectivity too.
4. The Raspberry Pi 3 supports the Linux version of OS, and you can use it on Windows system too. The Orange Pi has support to Ubuntu, Android, Linux, Raspbian, and some other OS versions.
5. The Raspberry Pi has the largest and most active support of community amongst the single board computers. Tons of documentation and tutorial guides you can find online and offline for different Raspberry Pi projects. On the other hand, the Orange Pi has just started building the community and so has no any competition even near to the Raspberry Pi.
6. The setup and running process of the Raspberry Pi is much easier than that of the Orange Pi.
7. There are hundreds of apps available for the support of Raspberry Pi designs and circuits which help to easily and quickly operate and navigate your Pi powered model. The Orange Pi too have some Android apps available online, but they are still not quite useful and in a number like the Pi has.

Odroid C2 Vs Raspberry Pi 3

Yeah, this was not the pre-setup to include in this article, but when I came to find this wonderful SBC, I couldn’t stop myself from mentioning it here. The Odroid C2 is one of the toughest competitors of Raspberry Pi 3. The most significant difference between both is that the Odroid-C2 can work almost twenty times faster than the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B. It includes 2GB RAM with a faster and better GPU, provides better throughput, and small yet dedicated community support. You can easily install Android or Ubuntu Mate on the Odroid C2 and run it without any issues.

Orange Pi Vs Raspberry Pi 3, Odroid C2 Vs Raspberry Pi 3 Specification

Which SBC is Best?

All the single board computers mentioned here are better and greater than each other in one or another way. The Orange Pi has a wide range of customized boards which can help you to have more specific and detailed design of your project. The Odroid-C2 comes with superfast processor than the other SBCs which is ideal for computing tasks. And the Raspberry Pi models like Pi 2, Pi 3, Pi Zero W, etc. are the most sought, used, tinkered, and gifted single board computers till the date. The Raspberry Pi has a tremendous community support which can solve your any doubt related to your Pi setup within minutes.

So, choose the suitable board according to your electronics project. Share your favorite board details here in the comment section below. Let me know if I had missed anything here.

Thanks!