Hello everyone,
with the supply issues with the raspberry pi’s, does anyone know of a different similarly prices alternatives?
I’ve found some stuff online but it’s usually prices at ~$100.
No, the RPi is the cheapest board for that class of computing.
Check out YouTube channel for explaining computers for a long (looooong) list of pretty much all SBC’s that normal people buy.
There are a few that sell direct, and others that sell through reseller shops.
You might actually find stuff on Amazon.
But Chris does a reasonable job of showing benefits of the different products.
He is Not a critic, so does tend to focus on the Good aspects, and not always cover the drawbacks.
But there are alternatives to the brand raspberry, like banana pi, late panda, o droid and stuff.
Some are just weak/underpowered, and some are expensive AF.
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And If you want to avoid OS problems, choose sbc which has Armbian or DietPi support. Avoid those that don’t have any support, even from the producer or only the producer, because many of them get abandoned quite quickly. Well, unless you feel up to do yourself OS for a specific sbc… 
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Apart from the fact that RK3399 based boards outperforms the RPi4? RockPro64 or Rock Pi 4 are suitable options in general. You might want to have a look at Allwinner H6 if video playback is of interest.
These SoCs and supported in many Linux and BSD-distributions too.
Sure, but are they 35 USD ex-factory? 'Cause that’s what the RPi 4 costs 
So buy a Pi. 
It will be hard to get something close to the parameters and price of Pi.
Nowadays, prices are abstract for almost everything. I used to pay $17 for a ZeroPi and now they want $58 at local distributor…
Currently, the local distributor wants $74 for the Pi4 4GB and it’s out of stock and you have to wait…
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The problem with alternatives is lackluster support and no work being done on them beside on launch. Most RockChip boards are just left with community support after as little as one year.
So follow the very good advice from TimHolus and find something that’s supported by famous distro makers. DietPi is one of the best for SBCs, so one that supports it would be a great alternative.
Rock Pi 4 2GB is priced at 49$, there’s no 1GB (why you would even bother is beyond me). If you want a cheaper Allwinner H6/A64 is a suitable platform.
Rockchip SoC (such as 3399) have much better open support and documentation available. I think everyone would be more than happy to know where you can find a TRM or equivalent for the Broadcom SoC, you’re very much depending on the RPi Foundation to keep working on the SoCs and upstream.
I wasn’t aware of this, thanks for having corrected me.
So what it can be said is that the Pi Foundation works behind the scenes for everything leaving very few details on the table for community support. RockChip just lays down all the cards and lets the community do all the work.
My comment came from many researches I did regarding distro support on Pi alternatives. Seeing very few and far between releases I thought that not much thought was ever given to RockChip SoCs.
As long as you have TRM available you pretty much all documentation needed for hardware support as long as its decent. Rockchip is also involved these days in upstreaming.
But. but… are any of them in stock? OP seemed to be after a decent SBC, which is available, and not have his pants pulled down over the price…
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I had good experiences with Odroid boards.
Banana-Pi is a bit weird to work with.
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Even though this looks like yet another thread where a person asks a super vague question and then leaves while the rest of the community argues over it, I’ll bite.
What do you want it to do? Does it have to be ARM? Pi form factor? Are there any limitations like heat or power? Are you trying to control things with GPIO pins and work with electronics, or just work with software?
The last time this stuff came up I had taken a small computer board I bought and stuffed it in a shoebox with the intention of sharing it here because I know a select few people like that sort of thing, and many more people melt down at the mere notion that something might not be ‘just so’ which is a never ending source of joy for me. I broke my leg and never got around to taking that picture before today, so here it is:
Paid something like $25 - $30 shipped with 4GB RAM, power button/light, and even had the M.2 wifi card installed. I already had a spare power brick. It’s the same N3700 Braswell SoC as my laptop in a less convenient form factor for way less money. There are much better options out there like a NUC board with the same processor. Prices and availability fluctuate on ebay, so if you don’t like what you see this week try next week. All sorts of thin clients and small machines complete in case with power supply are available for around the same cost as a fully functional Pi kit or less. They probably don’t have the power supply issues or thermal throttling the Pi has been plagued with.
If you want to work with electronics you can add an Arduino. If you want something ARM based, look up some of the TV boxes that have Linux support from Armbian. You can find things like an Allwinner H6 based box with case, power, and a remote. It may be weaker than a Pi, but it’s cheaper and available.
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It doesn’t matter really, I’m looking to start a bunch of projects for various purposes for a relatively low cost.
I was wondering if there were existing solutions either than the raspberry pi and I got plenty of great answers!
It’s mostly software based but I may expand into something else later.
It seems that RockPi, Odroid & Arduino’s are possible solutions for me. I may opt for something else in the end though - I’ll probably update the post with what I end up with.
My problem really is that availability of all these boards is very limited in Israel. Pi’s & Arduino are easy to find but they are almost always out of stock.
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The Raspberry Pi Foundation (quietly) released an update to the 32 bit Pi Desktop for x86 machines last month, which means it’s now on the same version of Debian as the Pi OS for their boards. You could run that bare metal or in a VM to play around with. I don’t know what it is like in your area, but there may be some sort of surplus or recycling place with something small and cheap so you can set up a dedicated machine until you can get your hands on the hardware you want.
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I personally say that if you are not going with a Pi or a Pine board, an AmLogic Odroid is the way to go. Personally I run SBCs from from the above vendors and they have their strengths and weaknesses.
Odroid’s variants of AmLogic are the best processing power and air cooled and Mainline Linux support with some BSD support.
Pis are… Pis.
Pine boards have killer support (older tech) and modability with good mainline Linux support and also some BSD support…
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Saying that Amlogic SoCs have good mainline support is a bit of stretch to my knowledge, looking at the Odriod forums suggests something along those lines too.