ESP32-P4 vs ESP32-S3: Which One Should You Actually Pick in 2026?

 ESP32-P4 vs ESP32-S3: Which One Should You Actually Pick in 2026?

I spent the better part of a weekend flashing the same TensorFlow Lite Micro demo onto both a P4 dev board and an S3 dev board, mostly because I was tired of guessing which chip to recommend to people in the comments. If you've been staring at Espressif's product page trying to figure out whether the new ESP32-P4 makes the S3 obsolete, short answer: no, but the reasons why are more interesting than a spec sheet lets on.

This isn't a copy-paste of the datasheet. It's what actually changes when you put these two chips into a real project.

The Quick Answer (If You're in a Hurry)

• CPU — S3: Dual-core Xtensa LX7, up to 240 MHz | P4: Dual-core RISC-V, up to 400 MHz
• Built-in Wi-Fi/BLE — S3: Yes | P4: No, needs a companion chip
• AI acceleration — S3: Vector instructions (AI-ready) | P4: Dedicated 2D/AI acceleration, much faster
• Camera/display interface — S3: Basic DVP | P4: MIPI-DSI / MIPI-CSI, real multimedia hardware
• RAM — S3: Up to 512KB + external PSRAM | P4: 768KB SRAM on-chip
• Best for — S3: Wi-Fi-connected sensors, voice, general IoT | P4: Camera, display, heavy on-device AI
• Price/maturity — S3: Cheap, huge community, tons of libraries | P4: Newer, pricier, smaller but growing ecosystem

If your project needs Wi-Fi and moderate AI, stick with the S3. If your project is camera- or screen-heavy and needs serious local processing, the P4 is worth the learning curve.

What Actually Is the ESP32-P4?

The ESP32-P4 is Espressif's move into genuinely high-performance edge computing. It runs a dual-core RISC-V processor clocked up to 400 MHz — nearly double the S3's ceiling — paired with 768 KB of on-chip SRAM. The headline feature, though, is the multimedia hardware: native MIPI-DSI for driving displays and MIPI-CSI for camera input, plus a 2D-DMA engine that handles JPEG and image processing without babysitting the CPU.

What it deliberately leaves out is just as important: the P4 has no built-in Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. Espressif designed it to pair with a companion chip (like the ESP32-C6) over an internal bus for connectivity. That's a very different design philosophy from every other ESP32 variant, and it trips people up constantly.

Where the ESP32-S3 Still Wins

The S3 isn't obsolete just because a faster chip exists. It remains the board most people should default to, for a few practical reasons:

• It's a one-chip solution. Wi-Fi, BLE, and decent AI vector instructions all live on the same die. No companion chip, no extra wiring, no extra firmware to manage.
• The ecosystem is enormous. Arduino libraries, ESP-IDF examples, TensorFlow Lite Micro ports, camera modules (the classic OV2640/OV5640 combo) — all of it just works with the S3 because thousands of makers have already hit the same bugs you will.
• It's cheaper, both the chip itself and the dev boards built around it.
• Power efficiency for battery projects is still excellent, especially with deep sleep, which I've covered in detail in my ESP32 sleep modes guide.

If you're building a Wi-Fi doorbell camera, a wake-word voice assistant, a battery-powered sensor node, or basically any project from my ESP32 tutorial archive, the S3 is still the right call in mid-2026.

Where the ESP32-P4 Pulls Ahead

The P4 earns its price premium in a narrow but growing set of use cases:

1. Local displays and touchscreens. MIPI-DSI support means you can drive high-resolution screens directly, without the bottlenecks you'd hit forcing a display through SPI on an S3. If you're building a smart home control panel, a diagnostics dashboard, or anything with a real UI, this is the chip.
2. Camera-heavy, low-latency vision. The dedicated 2D-DMA and JPEG hardware mean image capture and preprocessing barely touch your CPU budget. For real-time object detection or gesture recognition running entirely on-device, the P4 handles frame throughput the S3 simply can't.
3. Serious on-device AI models. If you've outgrown "detect one keyword" and want to run a genuinely sized vision or audio model locally — no cloud round-trip — the P4's extra RAM and clock speed give you real headroom.
4. Multimedia projects generally, like the PCB inspection camera I built earlier this year — that kind of project would run noticeably smoother on a P4-class chip today.

The Catch Nobody Puts on the Spec Sheet

Because the P4 has no radio silicon, every P4 project that needs internet or phone connectivity becomes a two-chip system. In practice that means:

• More board space and higher BOM cost than a single-chip S3 design
• An extra communication layer between the P4 and its companion (usually SDIO or SPI) that you have to configure correctly
• Fewer beginner-friendly tutorials right now, simply because the chip is new — expect some rough edges in Arduino-core support compared to the S3's years of polish

None of this is a dealbreaker. It's just a real cost that a "400 MHz beats 240 MHz" headline doesn't mention.

My Honest Recommendation

• Building your first ESP32 project, a Wi-Fi sensor, or a voice/audio device? Get an S3. It's cheaper, better documented, and more than capable.
• Building a screen-based device, a camera-first product, or running a real AI model locally with no cloud dependency? The P4 is worth the extra setup time — pair it with a C6 if you need connectivity.
• Not sure yet? Prototype on the S3 first. It's cheap enough that "wasting" a board isn't a big deal, and most projects don't actually need P4-class horsepower until you've proven the concept.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the ESP32-P4 replace the ESP32-S3?
No. They're built for different jobs — the S3 for connected, general-purpose IoT, and the P4 for local multimedia and heavier on-device AI. Espressif is selling both, and will likely keep selling both.

Can the ESP32-P4 connect to Wi-Fi at all?
Not on its own. It needs a companion Wi-Fi/BLE chip (commonly the ESP32-C6) connected over SDIO or SPI.

Is the ESP32-P4 worth it for a beginner project?
Usually not yet. The S3 has far more tutorials, forum answers, and plug-and-play libraries. Start there unless your project specifically needs a camera/display pipeline the S3 can't handle well.

Which one is better for TinyML?
For simple audio/keyword models, the S3 is plenty and cheaper. For vision models or larger networks, the P4's extra RAM and dedicated hardware make a real difference.

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