When comparing BeagleBone Black vs Tessel 2, the Slant community recommends BeagleBone Black for most people. In the question“What are the best single-board computers?” BeagleBone Black is ranked 22nd while Tessel 2 is ranked 36th. The most important reason people chose BeagleBone Black is:
There are 92 expansion pins, with 46-pin female connectors on both sides of the board with other 6 serial pins to be used for debugging.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Extendable hardware
There are 92 expansion pins, with 46-pin female connectors on both sides of the board with other 6 serial pins to be used for debugging.
Pro On board storage
Has on board integrated storage of 4GB. It can also have an SD card in addition to the integrated storage and can boot from either of them.
Pro Programmable Real Time Units with GPIO control
Real-time coprocessors allow for embedded systems control and bit-banging communication
Pro Analog Inputs
There are 7 1.8V analog inputs.
Pro Responsive, helpful online community
Pro Easy of use
It hosts a web service over USB so it is super simple to get started with plenty of source code and examples available.
Pro NodeJS support out of the box
Out of the box it supports Node 4.x LTS and doesn't require any setup to use it.
Pro Co-processor system
Runs Linux and user application code on a 580MHz Mediatek router-on-a-chip, with an asynchronous 48MHz SAMD21 coprocessor for GPIO, ADC, I2C, SPI, PWM and UART programming
Pro Programmable via USB or Wifi
The process for deploying software, whether it's JavaScript, Python or Rust, is exposed the same way for both USB and Wifi connections.
Pro Easy to get started with
The Tessel 2's "Getting Started" experience requires little more than installing Node.js and a single package (the CLI) via npm. Complete walkthroughs for Linux, Mac and Windows are available and up-to-date
Cons
Con Only one USB available for peripherals
There's only one USB port available for peripherals, which is a bit annoying considering how two USB ports is a minimum to have a keyboard and a mouse hooked up without having to use a powered USB hub.
Con Lack of a proper OpenGL driver
It sounds like the driver is possible, but the information is spread out over forums and GitHub.
Con Very little memory
64 megabytes of RAM. This places it more in line with an Arduino style board than a SBC on the level of Raspberry Pi.