Top Alternatives to ESP32 and ESP8266: Other Wireless Microcontrollers Worth Knowing

The ESP32 and ESP8266 have earned their place as the default choice for WiFi-enabled maker projects. They're cheap, well-documented, and supported by a massive community. But they're not the only wireless microcontrollers out there, and for certain projects, a different chip might be the better pick.

Here's what to consider when you need something beyond the ESP family.

Raspberry Pi Pico W

The Pico W brought WiFi to Raspberry Pi's microcontroller line, making it a direct competitor to the ESP32 for connected projects. It runs MicroPython or C/C++, has solid documentation from the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and benefits from the broader Pi community.

The Pico W's advantage over the ESP32 is documentation quality and consistency. The Raspberry Pi Foundation writes proper datasheets and tutorials, and things tend to work as described. The trade-off is that the Pico W only has WiFi (no Bluetooth in the base W model, though the WH adds headers and the Pico 2 W variants exist), and the ecosystem of ready-made firmware like ESPHome and Tasmota is built around ESP.

For projects where you want rock-solid WiFi with Python, the Pico W is excellent.

nRF52840 (Nordic Semiconductor)

If Bluetooth Low Energy is your primary wireless need, the nRF52840 is the chip to look at. Nordic's BLE stack is considered the best in the industry, and the nRF52840 supports Bluetooth 5, Thread, Zigbee, and even acts as a USB device.

Boards like the Adafruit Feather nRF52840 and Seeed XIAO nRF52840 make it accessible for makers. You can program them with Arduino, CircuitPython, or Nordic's own SDK.

The nRF52840 is also a natural fit for Thread-based smart home devices, especially if you're building sensors that need to run on batteries for months or years. Its power consumption in sleep modes is far lower than the ESP32.

STM32WB and STM32WL

STMicroelectronics has wireless variants of their popular STM32 line. The STM32WB combines an ARM Cortex-M4 application processor with a Cortex-M0+ for Bluetooth 5 and Zigbee radio duties. The STM32WL is one of the few microcontrollers with a built-in LoRa radio, making it ideal for long-range, low-power communication.

These are more industrial-grade chips and the development experience is more complex than ESP. But if you're designing a product or need LoRa without an external module, the STM32WL is one of the best options available.

Arduino Nano 33 IoT and Nano ESP32

Arduino's own wireless boards deserve a mention. The Nano 33 IoT uses a SAMD21 processor with a u-blox WiFi/BLE module, and the Nano ESP32 is literally an ESP32-S3 in the Nano form factor with full Arduino branding and support.

The Nano ESP32 gives you the best of both worlds: ESP32 hardware with first-class Arduino support. If you love the Arduino ecosystem but want ESP capabilities, this is the cleanest path.

Particle Photon and Argon

Particle takes a different approach. Their boards (Photon for WiFi, Argon for WiFi + Mesh) come with a cloud platform built in. You flash code through their web IDE, manage devices through their console, and use their cloud for device-to-device communication and OTA updates.

It's more expensive than ESP and ties you to their ecosystem, but for businesses or projects where you need reliable fleet management and cloud connectivity without building the infrastructure yourself, Particle saves significant development time.

LoRa Boards (Heltec, TTGO, RAK)

For projects that need to communicate over long distances, LoRa (Long Range) is the technology to look at. Heltec and TTGO make boards that combine ESP32 with LoRa radios, giving you WiFi, Bluetooth, and LoRa on a single board.

RAKwireless takes a more modular approach with their WisBlock system, which lets you snap together a base board, a processor module, and various sensor or communication modules.

LoRa won't replace WiFi. It's low bandwidth and designed for sending small packets of data over distances of several kilometers. But for remote weather stations, GPS trackers, agriculture sensors, or anything far from a WiFi access point, LoRa boards fill a gap that ESP alone can't.

Realtek RTL8720DN (BW16)

The BW16 module from Realtek supports dual-band WiFi (2.4GHz and 5GHz) and Bluetooth 5. Dual-band WiFi is something the ESP32 doesn't offer, and in congested 2.4GHz environments, having 5GHz as an option can improve reliability significantly.

The maker community around Realtek chips is much smaller than ESP, so documentation and library support are limited. But Ameba Arduino support exists, and for specific cases where 5GHz WiFi matters, it's worth investigating.

When to Stick with ESP

Let's be real: for most hobby IoT projects, the ESP32 is still the right choice. The community is huge, the libraries are mature, ESPHome and Tasmota provide no-code options, and the price is unbeatable.

Consider an alternative when you need better BLE (nRF52840), long range (LoRa), ultra-low power (nRF or STM32), better documentation (Pico W), cloud management (Particle), or dual-band WiFi (Realtek).

The wireless microcontroller market is bigger than most people realize, and the best projects use the best tool for the job, not just the most popular one.