Raspberry Pi OS 2026: Benefits, Features & Pricing

Software Advice offers objective insights based on verified user reviews and independent product and market research. When our advisors match you to a software provider, we may earn a referral fee.

How Software Advice ensures transparency

Software Advice lists all providers across its website—not just those that pay us—so that users can make informed purchase decisions. Users can talk to our advisors for free to receive software recommendations matching their needs. Software providers pay us for sponsored profiles to reach users interested in their products.

How Software Advice verifies reviews

Software Advice carefully verified over 2 million reviews to bring you authentic software experiences from real users. Our human moderators verify that reviewers are real people and that reviews are authentic. They use leading tech to analyze text quality and to detect plagiarism and generative AI.

Independent research methodology

Researchers at Software Advice use a mix of verified reviews, independent research, and objective methodologies to bring you selection and ranking information you can trust. While we may earn a referral fee when you visit a provider through our links or talk to an advisor, this has no influence on our research or methodology.

On this page

Overview
Pricing and Plans
Features
User Reviews

Overview

Raspberry Pi OS

4.8

(19)

Pricing

Pricing available upon request

About Raspberry Pi OS

Raspberry Pi OS is an operating system designed to help professionals access pre-compiled software bundles on Raspberry Pi hardware. The platform supports deployments on several devices including laptops and desktops.

Individuals can utilize the Advanced Packaging Tool (APT) to apply updates to Raspberry Pi OS. The system includes multiple applications such as media players, cameras and more to optimize performance and productivity. Additionally, the Raspberry Pi Imager enables professionals to install the operating system on a microSD card for use with Raspberry Pi hardware.

Raspberry Pi OS is available for free and support is extended via documentation, forums, FAQs and other online measures.

Raspberry Pi OS Screenshots

Raspberry Pi OS Pricing and Plans

Starting price: Pricing available upon request

Free Trial

Free Version

Basic

Pricing available upon request

No plan information available

Raspberry Pi OS Features

Popular features found in Operating Systems
App Management
Data Security
Kernels
System Updates
More features of Raspberry Pi OS
Desktop Interface
User Interface

Raspberry Pi OS User Reviews

Overall Rating

4.8

Ratings Breakdown

84%

16%

Secondary Ratings

Ease of Use

4.5

Value for money

4.9

Customer support

4.1

Functionality

4.6

Brian M.

Verified reviewer

Consumer Services

Self-Employed

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed August 2022

Versatile open-sourced sandbox for all use-cases you can think. (And plenty you can't)

Automating so many tasks that I no longer have to physically be present for. They do everything from monitor, alert, sense, notify, queue, diagnose, etc.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Its basic and primitive functionality. If you are confused, or stuck, there is an ABSOLUTE PLETHORA of forums and tutorials all over.

Cons:

It does get pretty technical with the Python and JavaScript quite often. You will have to learn enough to navigate your way around.

Kyle P.

Verified reviewer

Public Safety

Self-Employed

Used weekly for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed March 2025

RaspberryPi is that DIY thing that every IT nerd should at least give a chance

Love the platform and continually learning more every time a new project arises.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Ease of use and limitless possibilities for implementation of custom technology

Cons:

Availability of units during certain times

Reasons for choosing Raspberry Pi OS

Familiar with the RaspberryPi OS from previous project and cost wasn't that much different to change

Griffin L.

Verified reviewer

Computer Software

Self-Employed

Used monthly for less than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed February 2025

Raspberry Pi OS (Raspbian)

It was mostly good, nice for a pocket computer

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

It is very friendly to slightly experienced users

Cons:

It isn't very nice-looking, but you can fix that with a 3rd party DE

Reasons for choosing Raspberry Pi OS

It's a little more straightforward in terms of setup and installation

Kyle H.

Verified reviewer

Warehousing

501-1000 employees

Used monthly for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed August 2024

Rasp Pi OS the Go to for Tinkering/Testing easy application implementation in production.

I've used this OS for many applications and for general testing/fun from robotics tinkering to mini server farms.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Linux based, customizable, easy to work with GPIO's on the board

Cons:

It's a solid OS, nothing negative to say.

Reasons for choosing Raspberry Pi OS

It just depends on what I'm trying to do or if I want to test something. I have multiple Operating systems for a raspberry pi, the simplicity of swapping SD cards is extremely useful for fast testing purposes.

Verified

Reviewer

Automotive

1001-5000 employees

Used weekly for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed May 2022

Rapberry Pi an on a budget solution for scalable projects.

Very helpful and low budget to implement prototypes on IoT projects and low edge computing for IA.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The way you have back up support from all the community over the world implementing projects similar to the one you might start.

Cons:

The user interface is still very command line based, given that is Linux based OS is understandable, nevertheless it needs to get better.

Reasons for choosing Raspberry Pi OS

The flexibility and compatibility for the Raspberry pi, versus the expensive cost to purchase a PC to integrate to industrial process in acquiring data.

Reasons for switching to Raspberry Pi OS

The Azure IoT central is expensive to deploy for IoT solutions than the capabilities that Raspbian can provide given the flexibility.

Gavin G.

Verified reviewer

Information Technology and Services

51-200 employees

Used weekly for less than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed November 2021

Raspberry Pi OS up there with the best now

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

For integrated systems we often use Raspberry Pi's and the Raspberry Pi OS just makes everything easy, no messing with terminal or fiddly setups, it just works and it's reliable. Bullseye has just been released and is even better.

Cons:

Raspberry Pi OS can be fiddly to get up and running and certain things, even available in Debian, just aren't available.

Reasons for choosing Raspberry Pi OS

The alternative is Windows which costs so much more or Unix which takes a lot longer to get up and running.

Maha S.

Verified reviewer

Computer Software

501-1000 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed August 2023

Raspberry Pi OS: Controlling Raspberry Pi I/O using Python

Very good experience with the Pi as a controller for external machinery. I even used it in developing my microprocessor design courses for testing automation and interfacing applications.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

We tested Raspberry Pi OS in developing control software for Raspberry Pi 3B+ controllers. The configuration simply consists of connecting relay switches to the output ports of the Raspberry Pi to automate the on/off switching of electrical machinery. The programming language we used is Python which had all the libraries needed to control the I/O ports on the Raspberry Pi. Moreover we developed simple Web Server code on the Raspberry Pi to provide a Web user interface to the device management. Very easy to use and develop to produce real-world control applications. Would like to upgrade to Raspberry Pi 4 which promises better energy efficiency (this is a major problem I faced with task intensive processing on the Pi.

Cons:

Data as well as processing intensive operations produce a lot of heat on the Raspberry Pi. This is definitely not an issue with the OS but an architectural issue. It would be nice to upgrade and inspect with Raspberry Pi 4 as it promises better energy management. It would be great to test some machine learning training or image processing on the Pi and see how it goes in terms of energy consumption and heat dissipation.

Reasons for choosing Raspberry Pi OS

More flexible programming environment.

Nabin P.

Verified reviewer

Computer Software

51-200 employees

Used weekly for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed August 2021

Debian based official OS for Raspberry Pi computers

Raspberry PI OS has made it possible to develop low-cost computers and IoT devices.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Functionality

Pros:

With Raspberry Pi OS it is possible to develop extremely light and affordable computers and IoT devices. It is best suited for developers and hobbyists. It is a dedicated OS for ARM processors and supports hardware rendering. It is free and supported by the Raspberry Pi foundation with a wide range of official boards to meet any kind of commercial project needs.

Cons:

Still immature for enterprise-level implementation. Cannot be used for heavy computing. A hardware upgrade is not possible.

Reasons for choosing Raspberry Pi OS

We choose Raspberry Pi over these alternatives for its less size and better hardware support.

Reasons for switching to Raspberry Pi OS

We made a switch to Raspberry PI OS because it is Debian-based. Also, RaspberryPI produces varieties of hardware that support this OS without any trouble.

Meesala S.

Verified reviewer

Information Technology and Services

10000+ employees

Used monthly for less than 12 months

Review source

Reviewed April 2022

Raspberry Pi OS review

The biggest advantages of integrating raspi OS are the ease of use, cost, portability and efficiency. The overall experience was great and I look forward to using it again in the near future.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The features I liked the most are: 1. Peripheral support and Architecture 2. Hardware upgrades 3. Extremely portable and easy to integrate 4. Support for various sensors and coding languages

Cons:

Cons: 1. Non-compatibility with the Windows OS. 2. Can't replace a desktop computer and overheats. 3. No GPU unit and internal storage

Mahendra G.

Verified reviewer

Government Administration

501-1000 employees

Used monthly for less than 12 months

Review source

Reviewed July 2021

Rasberry pi os

My experience was so great i made many types of industrial projects using raspberry pi so i knew what it can do in our budget and its saves much electricity

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Functionality

Pros:

This os is made for raspberry pi mini computers. these one is entry level of computer system very small and tiny architecture and fits in pocket easily. This os does not require large amount of power so we can run this system on power bank also

Cons:

The very large coding operations was not done we need to another level of the raspberry pi so we can easily perform the heavily coding

Showing 1 - 10 of 19 Reviews

See All Reviews

Raspberry Pi OS 2026: Benefits, Features & Pricing

Overview

About Raspberry Pi OS

Raspberry Pi OS Screenshots

Raspberry Pi OS Pricing and Plans

Raspberry Pi OS Features

Raspberry Pi OS User Reviews

See what companies are saying about Software Advice