In this guide, both single-board computers are explained and compared with each other so it will be easy for the readers to choose any one of them for their application.
What is Banana Pi
Guangdong Bipai Technology introduced Banana Pi in the market which is an open-source hardware board used for different applications, as a computer to host different operating systems, in artificial intelligence, in IoT devices, and for educational purposes in different educational institutions.
The Banana Pi supports DDR3 memory, SATA interface, Gigabit LAN, Composite video out, HDMI out, IR, CSI camera interface, and DSI display interface.
Banana Pi is similar to the Raspberry Pi, one can say that Banana Pi is a clone of Raspberry Pi by looking at its physical appearance but indeed both are different from each other.
What is Raspberry Pi
Raspberry Pi is a single-board computer device that is launched by the Raspberry Pi foundation, whose primary purpose is to educate the college and school students about computer usage later on this device was being used for different applications like for automation of electrical equipment in industries with the usage of Raspberry Pi.
Later on, different models have been released for Raspberry Pi targeting different daily life applications of the users. It contains different GPIO pins, also some models contain Wi-Fi and Bluetooth modules which are being used for communication and sharing purposes.
What is the comparison between Banana Pi and Raspberry Pi
Banana Pi has been launched after being impressed by the popularity of Raspberry Pi and indeed Banana Pi is faster than the Raspberry Pi.
The major difference between both the devices are discussed:
| Specifications | Banana Pi BPI-M5 | Raspberry Pi 4 |
|---|---|---|
| Processor | Amlogic S905X3 Quad-Core Cortex-A55 (2.0xxGHz) 64 bit | Broadcom BCM2711, Quad core Cortex-A72 (ARM v8) 64-bit SoC @ 1.5GHz |
| RAM | 4GB LPDDR4 | 1GB, 2GB, 4GB or 8GB LPDDR4-3200 |
| USB | 4 USB 3, Type C | 2 USB 2.0 and 2 USB 3.0 ports |
| GPIO | 40 | 40 |
| Network | 10/100/1000 Mbits/s Ethernet | True Gigabit Ethernet |
| Microphone | Build-in | None |
| SATA port | Build-in | None |
Conclusion
Both, Raspberry Pi and Banana Pi, are the single-board computers that are being used for hosting operating systems as well as in IoT and artificial projects. Banana Pi was released after the popularity of Raspberry Pi and it contains the SATA port for storage devices which increases the operating system of Banana Pi as compared to Raspberry Pi which is dependent on microSD cards. In this guide, we have noticed a major comparison among both the SBCs.
