12 of the 20 features in our table differ between the ESP32-C3 and the ESP32-S3.
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.
Dual-core, PSRAM, USB OTG, camera, AI instructions
The all-rounder: two cores at 240 MHz, PSRAM, USB OTG, camera and RGB display interfaces, and vector instructions for AI.
Watch out: On modules with octal PSRAM, GPIO 35 to 37 are taken. Bluetooth is LE only, so no A2DP audio.
| Feature | ESP32-C3 | ESP32-S3 |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | 1 × RISC-V, 160 MHz | 2 × Xtensa LX7, 240 MHz |
| Low-power core | No | ULP RISC-V + FSM |
| SRAM | 400 KB | 512 KB |
| PSRAM | No | In-package or external, quad or octal |
| USB | Serial/JTAG (flash, serial, debug) | OTG full speed + Serial/JTAG |
| GPIO | 22 | 45 |
| ADC channels | 6 (ADC1: 5) | 20 (ADC1: 10) |
| Touch pins | No | 14 |
| Camera | No | Parallel (DVP) |
| Display interface | SPI only | Parallel RGB and i80 |
| Deep sleep | 5 µA | 7 µA |
| AI / DSP | No | 128-bit SIMD (PIE) |
Same on both: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Thread / Zigbee, DAC, TWAI (CAN), Ethernet MAC, ESPHome, 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 a lower deep-sleep current (5 against 7 µA). The ESP32-S3 has USB OTG, a camera interface (parallel), a display interface (RGB), and capacitive touch (14 pins).
The ESP32-C3: 5 µA against 7 µA for the ESP32-S3, as typical figures for the chip alone in Espressif’s datasheets. On a development board the regulator, the LEDs and the USB-serial chip usually draw more than the chip itself.
Arduino-ESP32 and ESP-IDF support both chips, so most code builds for either; pin numbers, strapping pins and some peripherals change.
ESP32 vs ESP32-C3 ESP32 vs ESP32-S3 ESP32-C3 vs ESP32-C5 ESP32-C3 vs ESP32-C6 ESP32-C3 vs ESP32-H2 ESP32-C3 vs ESP32-P4 ESP32-C3 vs ESP32-S2 ESP32-C5 vs ESP32-S3 ESP32-C6 vs ESP32-S3 ESP32-H2 vs ESP32-S3 ESP32-P4 vs ESP32-S3 ESP32-S2 vs ESP32-S3
Figures from Espressif datasheets, ESPHome and Arduino-ESP32 documentation, checked in November 2026.