Picking the wrong microcontroller for your product means a full board redesign, fresh certification fees, and months of lost time.
The ESP32 versus RP2350 question is one I get asked constantly, and most comparison videos turn it into a spec sheet drag race that misses the point for product creators.
So I'll walk you through how to decide which one fits your product, not which chip has bigger numbers on a datasheet.
Click here to read or watch the full version
The ESP32 vs RP2350 comparison matters more in 2026 than it did even a year ago. The RP2350 has had time to mature, with solid SDK improvements and broader distribution availability.
At the same time, the ESP32 family has expanded with the S3, C3, and C6 variants, and that changes which one fits your product.
The RP2350 is Raspberry Pi's second-generation microcontroller.
It runs at up to 150 MHz with 520 KB of internal RAM, and you can run two Arm Cortex-M33 cores or two Hazard3 RISC-V cores.
Most variants need an external flash chip, though Raspberry Pi also offers stacked-package versions with 2 MB of flash built in.
The standout feature is the PIO blocks, short for programmable input output, which let you build custom hardware interfaces in software.
There's no built-in wireless, and pricing depends on variant, with the A-variant well under a dollar in volume, while the B-variant with extra GPIOs and the stacked-flash versions run a bit higher.
The ESP32 family is a different beast.
For products, the variants worth considering are the original ESP32, the S3, the C3, and the newer C6, with the C6 increasingly preferred for new designs in 2026 thanks to its Matter, Thread, and WiFi 6 support.
All four include WiFi and Bluetooth, though only the original ESP32 supports Bluetooth Classic for things like audio streaming.
The S3, C3, and C6 are Bluetooth Low Energy only, and the C6 also adds Thread and Zigbee for smart home applications.
On the WiFi side, the original, S3, and C3 all use WiFi 4, while the C6 brings WiFi 6 with better power management and congestion handling, though those benefits need a WiFi 6 router.
The big advantage is the pre-certified module ecosystem, which we'll get to in a minute.
Pricing in volume varies a lot by variant, with C3 modules dipping below a dollar in high volumes, while the S3 runs noticeably higher.
Comparison #1: Wireless
Wireless is the single biggest factor in this decision, and it's where most product creators should stop reading spec sheets and just pick.
If your product needs WiFi or Bluetooth, the ESP32 wins by default, and it's not even close.
Adding wireless to a RP2350 design means picking a separate wireless chip or module, designing it onto your board, sourcing it through a different supply chain, and getting it all working with your firmware.
That adds extra components to your bill of materials, eats up board space, and complicates your PCB layout because RF traces have strict routing requirements.
You're also taking on a second supplier with its own lead times and second-source risk.
The ESP32 collapses all of that into one chip, and because Espressif sells pre-certified modules, the wireless side of your design is largely solved before you even start.
If wireless isn't part of your product at all, the RP2350 stays in the running, and we'll look at where it actually shines in a few minutes.
Raspberry Pi released a pre-certified wireless module called the RM2 that closes some of this gap.
It keeps you in the Raspberry Pi supply chain with modular FCC approval, and even brings back Bluetooth Classic that the modern ESP32 variants dropped.
You're still adding a separate part on the RP2350, though.
Comparison #2: Certification
Certification is where most product creators underestimate the gap between these two chips by a lot.
A pre-certified ESP32 module already has FCC certification and CE test reports for the radio itself.
For FCC, that means you can use modular approval to skip most of the expensive fundamental radio testing on your end product.
For CE, the path is different since there's no formal modular approval, and you're still legally responsible for the whole product.
But you can include the module's test reports in your technical file, which substantially cuts down the scope of what you have to test.
If you design a custom RP2350 board with a wireless chip soldered down next to it, you're now responsible for the full intentional radiator certification on your finished product.
That includes radiated emissions testing in a certified lab, often multiple rounds if you fail, plus design updates as needed.
The cost difference can run into the tens of thousands of dollars, plus several extra months on your timeline.
If your product has any wireless functionality, picking an ESP32 with a pre-certified module is the difference between a few weeks of certification work and a multi-month effort.
Comparison #3: Compute and Peripherals
Pure compute performance is closer than you'd think, especially against the S3.
The RP2350 runs at 150 MHz, and you can run two Cortex-M33 cores, two Hazard3 RISC-V cores, or technically a mix of both, though that adds toolchain complexity.
The S3 has dual Xtensa cores at 240 MHz with vector extensions for AI and signal processing.
For most products, both have plenty of horsepower, and the differences only show up in specific use cases.
So if you're doing voice recognition or basic machine learning at the edge, the S3 has a clear advantage thanks to those vector instructions.
Just keep in mind those instructions are Xtensa-specific, and the C3 and C6 are also single-core, so picking one gives up the dual-core and AI advantages.
That said, the C3 and C6 are RISC-V native, which some developers prefer for open-source toolchain consistency.
If you're doing custom hardware interfaces, the RP2350 wins through its PIO blocks.
PIO is where the RP2350 really stands out.
It lets you build custom protocols in dedicated hardware, things like driving an unusual display, generating precise timing signals, or implementing a legacy interface that no microcontroller supports natively.
For products that need this kind of flexibility, PIO goes further than the ESP32's RMT peripheral, though RMT can be pushed pretty far for things like WS2812B timing.
But for most products, PIO is overkill, and if you're using standard interfaces like SPI, USB, and UART, both chips handle them well.
Comparison #4: Power Consumption
Power consumption is where this comparison gets interesting for battery-powered products.
The RP2350 has a deep sleep mode that pulls under 10 uA, which is solid for a chip with this much processing power.
Active current at full speed runs in the tens of mA depending on what's enabled.
ESP32 deep sleep numbers vary a lot by variant.
The C6 hits sleep currents in the low single-digit microamp range with just the real-time clock running, which is actually quite a bit better than the RP2350 for ultra-low-power products.
With the radio off, the RP2350 typically pulls less active current than the ESP32, with the gap widest against the S3 at full clock speed where the difference can be several times over.
For battery products that adds up.
The big jump happens when the radio fires up, where WiFi transmit bursts can pull a few hundred mA, and Bluetooth Low Energy pulls less but still more than the RP2350 alone.
So for products that spend most of their life in deep sleep, the C6 actually has the edge thanks to that lower sleep current.
For products that need decent active performance without wireless, the RP2350 wins thanks to its lower active draw.
If it does need wireless, the question becomes how often you transmit, and products that wake up briefly every few minutes to send a small packet of data can still hit excellent battery life on a C6.
For always-on connected products, battery life gets tight regardless of which chip you pick.
Comparison #5: Cost at Scale
Sticker price is where most people start, and where most people get this comparison wrong.
Chip to chip, ESP32 SoCs like the C3 actually beat the RP2350 in volume.
But ESP32 designs almost always use pre-certified modules to avoid redoing radio certification, so the practical comparison is a RP2350 chip-down design versus an ESP32 module.
For the RP2350 you add an external flash chip, a crystal for timing, and if you need wireless, another chip and antenna.
By the time you've built a comparable design, the bill of materials is often higher than just dropping in a pre-certified ESP32 module.
For non-wireless products, the RP2350 does come out ahead on total bill of materials, especially at higher volumes where you can amortize external components across larger orders.
For wireless products, the ESP32 module almost always wins on total cost when you factor in certification and reduced engineering time.
That last part is what most people miss, because a few extra dollars per unit on a chip can be far cheaper than three extra months of engineering and a failed certification run.
So always think about the total cost, not just the chip price you see on Digi-Key.
Comparison #6: Ecosystem and Tooling for Production
The ESP32's ecosystem is more mature for commercial products.
Espressif has been shipping the ESP32 family since 2016, and the SDK, debugging tools, and manufacturing test infrastructure have been battle-tested across millions of products.
Espressif has good long-term availability, with the original ESP32 in stable production since 2016 and newer variants like the S3, C3, and C6 launched from 2020 onward.
The RP2350 has come a long way since launch.
The SDK is solid, debugging is well supported through standard tools, and Raspberry Pi has been more transparent about long-term availability than people expected.
But it's still a younger platform, and you'll occasionally run into edge cases that are well-trodden on the ESP32 side.
So if you're building a product where you need confidence in your supply chain, your debug tools, and your firmware stability under stress, the ESP32 has a maturity advantage that matters when you're shipping a real product.
When to Choose Which
Choose the RP2350 when you...
Click here to finish reading or watching the full version
Talk soon,
John
P.S. If you need help navigating these kinds of decisions for your hardware product, you can get guidance from me and other experts inside the Hardware Academy.