What is Raspberry Pi and what makes it so special?

It's a cheap and tiny computer.

>>59530544
this.
it's a decent computer the size of a credit card

>>59530511
It was the first widely available cheap small form factor single board computers, so it became the standard everyone makes their software compatible with. If you don't need that or the interface pins, there's cheaper boards. Many tasks don't even need a whole computer and can be done with a $3 Arduino clone.

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>>59530511
Google it then you fucking spastic.

>>59530511
There is better or at least good enough alternatives for even lower price, but the thing is rpis have better support and much much bigger community, so much more projects and help for something you have in mind.

I have 3 rpis, 1 rpi3, 1 zero and now I got zero w, I use the rpi3 for testing new shit, and deploy it on actual systems, the zero I use for handled nes console, and the w is my git server on batteries (just in case)

Anyway, since I got them I bought many other sbc, such as odroid c2 and xu4 and recently I got the orange pi zero... they are all great value/price but lack the community, yet I still can do a lot of stuff on and with them, but I can imagine how hard it would be to start right away with them instead of rpis, I learned a lot about a lot of stuff because of rpi.

So yeah this is the long version of why is different, and one of the main reasons is branding.