When comparing BeagleV vs HiFive Unleashed, 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 BeagleV is ranked 5th. The most important reason people chose HiFive Unleashed is:
Completely open-source CPU architecture.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Board design files are publically available
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.
Cons
Con Product cancelled
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."