The Raspberry Pi is a development board but it is actually an entire computer. It is powerful enough to perform basic functions, multimedia, programming and integration functions. For its part, Arduino is an open source creative platform based on free hardware and software that provides the Arduino IDE platform (integrated development environment), a programming platform for creating specific Arduino board systems.
Raspberry Pi vs Arduino, how are they different?
| Raspberry Pi 3 Model B | Raspberry Pi Zero | Raspberry Pi 2 Model B | Raspberry Pi Model B + | Raspberry Pi 4 | This is the Arduino | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SoC | BCM2837 | BCM2835 | BCM2836 | BCM2835 | BCM2711 | ATmega328 |
| CPU | Quad Cortex A54 @ 1.2 GHz | ARM11 @ 1 GHz | Quad Cortex A7 @ 900 MHz | ARM11 @ 700 MHz | Quad Cortex-A72 @ 1.5 GHz | 16 MHz |
| Teaching set | ARMv8-A | ARMv6 | ARMv7-A | ARMv6 | ARMv8 | Arduino IDE |
| GPU | VideoCore IV 400 MHz | VideoCore IV 250 MHz | VideoCore IV 250 MHz | VideoCore IV 250 MHz | VideoCore VI | ATmega328 |
| RAM | 1 GB SDRAM | 512 MB SDRAM | 1 GB SDRAM | 512 MB SDRAM | 1GB, 2GB, 4GB (depending on model) | 2 KB |
| Storage | MicroSD | MicroSD | MicroSD | MicroSD | MicroSD | EEPROM 1 KB |
| Ethernet | 10/100 | No. | 10/100 | 10/100 | 10/100/1000 | No. |
| You have no wires | 802.11n / Bluetooth 4.0 | No. | No. | No. | 802.11ac, Bluetooth 5.0, BLE | No. |
| Video results | HDMI / Combination | HDMI / Combination | HDMI / Combination | HDMI / Combination | 2 × micro-HDMI | No. |
| Sound effects | HDMI / Headphones | HDMI | HDMI / Headphones | HDMI / Headphones | HDMI / Headphones | No. |
According to Hardware, as you can see, there is nothing they can do. And is that the big difference between both development boards? The Arduino can run one program at a time (and it's designed to use it again and again and again and again), while with the Raspberry Pi we can do almost the same on a PC in terms of way. In short The Raspberry Pi is a small PC while the Arduino is a small controller.
In the following table we will give you the basic differences of both platforms.
| Raspberry Pi | Arduino |
|---|---|
| It's a small PC that can run multiple programs at the same time | It is a small controller, which is part of a computer, running the same program over and over. |
| It's difficult to work with battery power. | Made for battery power. |
| It requires complex tasks such as installing libraries and software to interact with sensors and other objects. | Its components and sensors work in a coordinated way. |
| It's expensive in terms of Arduino. | It's cheap. |
| It is easily connected to the Internet with its RJ-45 port or WiFi via USB. | Require External Hardware to connect to the Internet and must be programmed using the code to work. It is not intended to connect to the Internet. |
| It doesn't have storage, but you can use its SD slot. | May come with integrated storage. |
| It has 4 USB ports to connect different devices. | It has only a Type B B port for connecting it to a PC. |
| Uses ARM processors. | Uses AVR family processor. |
| We should delete it correctly so that there is no risk of file fraud. | It is a plug and play device. |
| The recommended programming language is Python, but you can use C, C ++, and Ruby as well. | Just use Arduino and C / C ++. |
As you can see from the table the differences are more than obvious, and the fact that they are not actually compared because even though they look similar in appearance, they are less coherent. It goes too far, we can use the Raspberry Pi to set up the Arduino board connecting each other via USB.
What are the Raspberry Pi and Arduino used for?
The range of possibilities offered by the Raspberry Pi is huge, especially compared to the Arduino. It's all a small PC, and by simply putting the operating system on the Micro SD we can use it, for example, as a multimedia channel playing content on TV, programming on Linux (Raspbian) distribution, as a file server, as a domain controller … the possibilities are huge.
For its part, with Arduino as we mentioned we can only use certain programs. Many engineers use Arduino boards to process the action of a robot machine, to build a meteorological station, lighting management with motion sensors … the possibilities are also very wide, but as you can see it should be one purpose, and in all cases more hardware is required.
As you can see, they are very different devices and are used for different purposes, so we can't really compare or say which one is better because they are used for different things. In any case, we can say that the Raspberry Pi will give us a much more flexible platform and with more possibilities than the Arduino.
