17 of the 20 features in our table differ between the ESP32-C3 and the ESP32-P4.
Small RISC-V, Wi-Fi 4, BLE 5, 5 µA deep sleep
A small, low-cost RISC-V chip with Wi-Fi 4, Bluetooth LE 5, USB Serial/JTAG built in and 5 µA in deep sleep.
Watch out: One core, no PSRAM and only 5 ADC pins you can rely on, since ESP-IDF doesn’t support ADC2.
400 MHz dual-core, MIPI camera and display, no radio
The most powerful: two cores at 400 MHz, MIPI camera and display, an H.264 encoder, USB 2.0 high speed and Ethernet, but no radio.
Watch out: No Wi-Fi or Bluetooth on the chip: boards add a second chip, often an ESP32-C6. Early revisions (v1.x) run at 360 MHz.
| Feature | ESP32-C3 | ESP32-P4 |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | 1 × RISC-V, 160 MHz | 2 × RISC-V, 400 MHz |
| Low-power core | No | LP RISC-V core |
| SRAM | 400 KB | 768 KB |
| PSRAM | No | In-package, 16 or 32 MB |
| Wi-Fi | Wi-Fi 4 (802.11 b/g/n), 2.4 GHz | No |
| Bluetooth | LE 5 | No |
| USB | Serial/JTAG (flash, serial, debug) | OTG high speed + full speed, Serial/JTAG |
| GPIO | 22 | 55 |
| ADC channels | 6 (ADC1: 5) | 14 |
| Touch pins | No | 14 |
| Camera | No | MIPI-CSI + parallel |
| Display interface | SPI only | MIPI-DSI + parallel |
| TWAI (CAN) | 1 | 3 |
| Ethernet MAC | No (SPI module) | Yes (RMII) |
| Deep sleep | 5 µA | See datasheet |
| AI / DSP | No | 128-bit SIMD (AI/DSP) |
| ESPHome | Yes (ESP-IDF or Arduino) | Yes (ESP-IDF, Wi-Fi from a second chip) |
Same on both: Thread / Zigbee, DAC, and Arduino-ESP32.
Open the ESP32 comparison →Tick what your project needs and see which of the eight chips fits best.
The ESP32-C3 has Wi-Fi on the chip (Wi-Fi 4 on 2.4 GHz), Bluetooth LE, and the Arduino framework in ESPHome. The ESP32-P4 has USB 2.0 high speed (480 Mbit/s), a camera interface (MIPI-CSI), a display interface (MIPI-DSI), and H.264 video encoding in hardware.
Espressif rates the ESP32-C3 at 5 µA in deep sleep; for the ESP32-P4, check the latest datasheet. On a board the regulator and the LEDs usually draw more than either chip.
Arduino-ESP32 and ESP-IDF support both chips, so most code builds for either; pin numbers, strapping pins and some peripherals change. Anything that uses Wi-Fi on the chip (Wi-Fi 4 on 2.4 GHz) or Bluetooth LE won’t carry over: the ESP32-P4 doesn’t have that hardware. In ESPHome the ESP32-P4 works only with the ESP-IDF framework, so components that need Arduino won’t build.
ESP32 vs ESP32-C3 ESP32 vs ESP32-P4 ESP32-C3 vs ESP32-C5 ESP32-C3 vs ESP32-C6 ESP32-C3 vs ESP32-H2 ESP32-C3 vs ESP32-S2 ESP32-C3 vs ESP32-S3 ESP32-C5 vs ESP32-P4 ESP32-C6 vs ESP32-P4 ESP32-H2 vs ESP32-P4 ESP32-P4 vs ESP32-S2 ESP32-P4 vs ESP32-S3
Figures from Espressif datasheets, ESPHome and Arduino-ESP32 documentation, checked in November 2026.