Banana Pi
Open-source hardware board family from the Banana Pi team (SinoVoip), spanning Rockchip, Amlogic, Allwinner, MediaTek and RISC-V SoCs.
hardware
also known as BPI, BananaPi, BPI-M7, BPI-M5
Knowledge about Banana Pi
- A Raspberry Pi-style GPIO header does not make Pi HATs and GPIO libraries workwarning · unverified · Alternative boards may copy the 40-pin layout, use a different header (Orange Pi 5 has 26 pins) or map pins differently. Pi-specific libraries, HAT drivers and camera/display connectors generally don't carry over; use the vendor's library (e.g. wiringOP) or the generic Linux GPIO interfaces.
- Armbian on Banana Pi: BPI-M5, M7, M4 Zero, M2S and F3 have 'Standard support', BPI-R4 only 'Community support'recommendation · unverified · Before choosing Banana Pi's own images, check the board on armbian.com. At the time of writing, the BPI-M5, BPI-M7, BPI-M4 Zero, BPI-M2S and BPI-F3 pages show Standard support, the BPI-R4 page Community support. Vendor images can be old: the BPI-M5's newest Ubuntu image on its docs page is Ubuntu 20.04 from 2023.
- Banana Pi BPI-F3: a RISC-V SBC with the SpacemiT K1, and which operating systems it runsguide · unverified · The BPI-F3 uses the SpacemiT K1, an octa-core 64-bit RISC-V chip with 2.0 TOPS of AI compute. Banana Pi's docs list Bianbu Linux (SpacemiT), an OpenWrt 23.05.2 source tree, Armbian and an ArchLinux port; Armbian shows it with Standard support. It has a 26-pin header and a -40 to 85 °C operating range.
- Banana Pi BPI-M4 Zero: a Pi Zero W-sized board with eMMC, and the K016 Wi-Fi module that has no 5 GHzguide · unverified · The BPI-M4 Zero has the form factor and 40-pin connector of the Raspberry Pi Zero W, an Allwinner H618, 2 or 4 GB LPDDR4 and 8 or 32 GB eMMC. Banana Pi notes that boards with the K016 Wi-Fi module don't support 5 GHz Wi-Fi. Armbian shows Standard support.
- Banana Pi BPI-R3: boot switches, SD/NAND/eMMC install order, and the SFP and serial-adapter pitfallsprocedure · unverified · The BPI-R3 boots from microSD, SPI-NAND, SPI-NOR or eMMC depending on four DIP switches. microSD and eMMC share pins, so installing OpenWrt to eMMC goes via SPI-NAND. Its SFP cages only speak 2.5GBase-X, and some USB-serial adapters break Wi-Fi initialisation.
- Banana Pi BPI-R4: no Wi-Fi on the board, a 19 V supply for the Wi-Fi 7 card, and the 8 GB RAM trapwarning · unverified · The BPI-R4 (MT7988A) brings Wi-Fi through miniPCIe cards, not onboard radios. OpenWrt's device page says the optional Wi-Fi 7 card needs a 19 V / 3.2 A supply and a switch set before installation, and that a 4 GB image limits 8 GB boards to 4 GB unless a compatible BL2 bootloader is used.
- Banana Pi for IoT and home servers: BPI-M7 (RK3588) and BPI-M5 (Amlogic S905X3)guide · unverified · Banana Pi spans many SoC vendors. Two representative boards: BPI-M7 with RK3588, up to 32 GB RAM, eMMC, PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe and dual 2.5G Ethernet; BPI-M5 with Amlogic S905X3, 4 GB RAM, 16 GB eMMC and four USB 3.0 ports.
- Banana Pi lineup decoded: M boards, R router boards, F RISC-V boards, and which SoC is insideguide · unverified · Banana Pi sells many boards built on chips from different vendors. Group them by SoC: MediaTek Filogic router boards (BPI-R), Allwinner and Amlogic boards (BPI-M, P2 Zero), and RISC-V SpacemiT K1 boards (BPI-F3, CM6). Software support follows the SoC, not the brand.
- Banana Pi power supplies: 5 V over USB for the M boards, 12 V or 19 V barrel jacks for the router boardswarning · unverified · Banana Pi boards don't share one power standard. The BPI-M5 and BPI-M4 Zero take 5 V / 3 A over USB, the BPI-R3 needs 12 V / 2 A, the BPI-R4 12 V / 5.2 A or 19 V / 3.2 A, and the BPI-R3 Mini 12 V (20 W) or USB-C PD. Check each board's page before reusing a supply.
- Banana Pi router boards for an IoT gateway: BPI-R3 vs BPI-R3 Mini vs BPI-R4 vs OpenWrt Onecomparison · unverified · All four are MediaTek Filogic boards aimed at OpenWrt. The OpenWrt One is the OpenWrt project's own board with an unbrickable NOR recovery system; the R3 Mini is compact with two 2.5GbE ports and a 5G slot; the R3 adds SFP and five gigabit ports; the R4 adds 10G SFP and Wi-Fi 7 via cards.
- Choosing an OS for Raspberry Pi alternatives: vendor images, Armbian support levels, mainlineguide · unverified · OS support decides how usable an alternative board is. Compare vendor images, Armbian (with Standard, Community maintained and Staging support levels) and mainline distributions, and check the kernel's age before deploying long-lived IoT devices.
- GPIO on Banana Pi: the RPi.GPIO and WiringPi ports only do simple I/O, and BCM numbers are translatedwarning · unverified · Banana Pi's docs point to ports of WiringPi (with gpio readall) and RPi.GPIO for boards like the BPI-M5, M2S, M4 Zero and F3. The RPi.GPIO port states that only simple I/O works — PWM, events and analog read are not implemented — apps need root, and BCM numbers are mapped to Banana Pi pins internally.
- IoT projects: when a Raspberry Pi alternative makes sense and when to stay with the Pirecommendation · unverified · Choose an alternative for a concrete hardware need the Pi lacks (onboard eMMC, fast NVMe, 2.5G/dual Ethernet, NPU, lots of RAM, x86). Stay with Raspberry Pi when you depend on HATs, Pi-specific libraries, tutorials or long-term OS support.
- RK3588 boards (Orange Pi 5, Banana Pi BPI-M7, Radxa ROCK 5B): what they share and where they differcomparison · unverified · The Rockchip RK3588/RK3588S family (4x Cortex-A76 + 4x Cortex-A55, 6 TOPS NPU) powers many high-end Raspberry Pi alternatives. The boards differ mainly in PCIe lanes to the NVMe slot, Ethernet speed, header size and software support.
- Raspberry Pi alternatives compared: Banana Pi, Orange Pi, ROCK64 / Radxa ROCK, ODROIDcomparison · unverified · What actually differs between Raspberry Pi and its alternatives: SoC vendor, OS and kernel support, GPIO/software compatibility, storage and networking. No universal winner: pick by the software you need first, hardware second.