Today we will answer the question: What are the Arduino alternatives? When I had the idea for this article, I didn’t imagine that the answer would be “there are many”, but I was surprised to discover that there really are several options on the market.

Since its popularization in the early 2010s, Arduino has become the standard for prototyping and small automation, a market that everyone on my list also wants to conquer.

We won’t talk here about Arduino clone boards made in China, the ones you buy with random names on Aliexpress. I will only comment on companies or institutions that created their own ecosystems (bootloader, programmer, recorder, IDE, etc.).

Furthermore, I will comment on some microcontroller manufacturers that have their own lines of development boards, to demonstrate that they also saw the importance that Arduino has gained.

The list is extensive and is below, in no particular order. There are several other options that I couldn’t find or that I didn’t see the need to mention. Comment below the article what you think.

Teensy, Espruino, Freescale FRDM, Adafruit, Sparkfun, Seeed studio, Raspberry Pi, Espressif, BBC micro, Beagle board, STM32 discovery, Texas Instruments launchpad, Particle, Parallax, DF robot.

We can divide the list a little better, among, for example, microcontroller manufacturers: Freescale FRDM, Raspberry pi, Espressif, STM32 Discovery, Texas instruments Launchpad.

“One board” companies: Teensy, Espruino, BBC micro, Beagle board, Particle. And finally “maker” companies, which have complete product lines: Adafruit, Sparkfun, Seeed Studio, Parallax, DF robot.

So What are the Arduino alternatives?

Microcontroller manufacturers

1- Freescale FRDM: Freescale has a complete ecosystem of development boards, from the LPC family (which has 8bit UCs) to the Cortex-M4 with the FRDM-K64. This link has a quick start guide.

2- Raspberry Pi: The foundation launched its own microcontroller in 2021, the RP2040. It can be programmed in C/C++ or microPython and supports machine learning applications.

3 – Espressif: The Chinese company has a complete line of microcontrollers with its own core. Its products are aimed at wireless and IoT connectivity, with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

It has a wide range of ESP32s in addition to ESP-12 and ESP8266.

4- STM32 Discovery: ST has a wide line of development boards focused on the 32bit ARM Cortex family. It has a complete IDE (the STM32Cube IDE).

5- Texas Instruments Launchpad: Its line features the ARM Cortex, C2000 and MSP430/432. Through a partnership, it is possible to program your microcontrollers with Energia IDE.

I even talk about one of its boards, the MSP432 in this article.

Companies created around “a single board”

6- Teensy: a line created by the PJRC company, basically uses Freescale cortex M0, M4 and M7 microcontrollers. Programmable via Arduino IDE.

7 – Espruino: company that started as a Kickstarter campaign, its unique feature is that it allows programming via Javascript directly from the browser. It has versions with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and LCD.

8- BBC Micro: bit: British initiative with a strong educational nature, can be programmed in Makecode, C++, Python. It is based on Freescale’s KL26 and Nordic’s nRF51 chips.

9- Beagle board: more focused on single boards that run Linux, it almost always bases its products on chips from Texas Instruments. They run Android and several Linux distributions.

10- Particle.io: a company that also started with a kickstarter, is more focused on connectivity and IoT, with a more commercial footprint than a maker one. Even the price of products on the website is a bit elitist.

Maker-focused companies

11- Adafruit: founded and headquartered in New York, it is truly a maker company, it has everything and is always launching new lines. The speed at which they move is impressive.

They are the creators of CircuitPython, a fork of microPython. They created lines such as Metro, Stemma and Feather.

12 – Sparkfun: founded in Colorado (USA) is also a truly maker company, in Adafruit style. They also create their product lines, such as Thing, Qwiic and Artemis.

13- Seeed Studio: this giant maker is Chinese, offering a wide line of products (as well as Sparkfun and Adafruit). In addition to selling third-party boards and kits, it has its own lines such as Wio and Xiao.

14- Prallax: this traditional American manufacturing company is well known for its programmable microcontrollers in Basic stamp. It also sells kits and boards from other manufacturers.

15- DF robot: American founded by makers in 2008, it only works with its own products. Among its lines we have Boson, Romeo, Bluno and gravity. Boards programmable via Arduino IDE.

To wrap-up

Whether chip manufacturers, maker companies or single-board companies, they all want a share of the maker/educational market. The future apparently lies in artificial intelligence, so we will increasingly see powerful “edge” boards capable of processing more data.

Do you know of any other companies that I didn’t mention here? write below in the comments and let’s talk.