When comparing HiFive Unleashed vs HiFive1, the Slant community recommends HiFive Unleashed for most people. In the question“What are the best completely open-source (considering even the bootloader, all drivers, availability of Gerber files, etc) active single board computer designs?” HiFive Unleashed is ranked 1st while HiFive1 is ranked 3rd. The most important reason people chose HiFive Unleashed is:
Completely open-source CPU architecture.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro RISC-V
Completely open-source CPU architecture.
Pro Expandable capability
Microsemi announced a “HiFive Unleashed Expansion Board” built on its PolarFire FPGA that adds PCIe and USB expansion for the RISC-V-based, Linux driven HiFive Unleashed SBC.
Pro RISC-V
Completely open-source CPU architecture.
Pro Arduino-compatible
Compatible with Arduino software and accessories, making it an effective drop-in replacement.
Cons
Con Expensive for early adopters
From the SiFive website:
"This board is intended for software developers, and as such we made decisions such as having 8GB DDR4 memory, a large SPI Flash, multiple headers and a high-speed FMC expansion port to maximize the development value of the board. Production costs are also relatively high in this early, limited volume build. We are working hard to bring down the cost in future boards to enable more developers with Linux-capable, Freedom Unleashed RISC-V SoCs."
Con Designed with Altium
"The design files for the HiFive 1 were made with Altium, a proprietary and non-Free software."
Con Leverages an FTDI chip, so not fully open-source
"This is an Arduino-compatible board with an FTDI chip providing the USB to serial conversion. [...] An FTDI chip is not Open Source, and they have designed drivers to break chips that aren’t theirs."
