Sparkfun Vs. Adafruit
Let’s have a debate on the topic on Sparkfun Vs. Adafruit.
(No DFrobot, or SeeedStudio, or Arduino, or Raspberry pi. (Yet.) )
Adafruit products, for some reason feel much smoother (sometimes literally, they have rounded corners).
To me, SparkFun seems to have moved on from some of it’s audience, and it’s products are sometimes a bit rough.
According to me adafruit is better.
Why?
Curious for a different viewpoint.
(Even though I mostly agree.)
SparkFun has a much wider range of products
I would tend to agree. I find that, especially on a first product run that there is always some modification that needs doing. This normally involves a track cut and adding a wire link. I have never found that with Adafruit.
The only thing annoying, being from the UK, is the way she pronounces her name, and by implication the Name of "Ada Lovelace".
She says it like "add a fruit" where it should be "aide-a fruit"
Like in this video
According to my point of view , adafruit products have a better build quality , better libraries and the last thing is that here in my country India , adafruit products are cheaper than sparkfun and that with a great margin.
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It's not you. It's not a UK thing. It's Massachusetts. Folks from there sound weird to the rest of us in the US too.
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The few things I've purchased from Sparkfun did not work. One had an obvious serious design flaw.
Everything I've purchased from Adafruit has worked well. I will continue doing business with them.
(As a side note, I love Limor Fried's masters thesis. Weirdly that's how I first learned of her.)
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Adafruit's aggressive marketing of open source stuff has always put me off, I don't use them.
And the name thing!
Adafruit for me …. For all the reasons already stated and I’ll add mine. Much like the community here at Arduino, I love the forum / community / moderators over there that tend to be pretty helpful for people like me that sometimes struggle with understanding the drivers/coding .
Are you sure about that? I've never heard it pronounced that way by anyone.
I did a quick search and found this example of Limor Fried saying the company name and it is pronounced "aide-a fruit":
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I've ordered from both (not a lot) and I've been satisfied with both. They don't have exactly the same products so it depends on what I'm buying.
Adafruit seems to have more tutorial information All of the boards/modules I've bought from SparkFun have had published schematics but I don't think Adafruit does that.
Both are good "hobby suppliers". They aren't the first place I shop for standard electronic components. For those, I usually go to Mouser or Jameco. I've been a Jameco customer for a LONG time, and Mouser doesn't have a minimum order.
I don't buy from eBay, AliExpress, "unknown" 3rd-party suppliers, or anybody that doesn't provide full datasheets & documentation.
I think that, just like SparkFun, they are pretty dedicated to making the hardware they design (note they also sell products from other manufacturers) open source. If you are starting at a product page, you will usually find a link in the description to an associated guide that contains the schematics.
For example, for this product:
the guide is here:
then under the "Downloads" section of the guide you will find the schematics and design files:
https://learn.adafruit.com/huzzah32-esp32-breakout-board/downloads
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To my UK ears she sounds to be saying it wrong, but maybe that is just the U.S. accent. I have a friend in the UK who insists on calling it "add a Fruit" because that is the way she pronounces it in videos. I must admit I very rarely watch electronic YouTube videos, because the information density is not very good even if they know what they are doing, which is a rarity.
I have two YouTube channels and I am always getting hints on content creation which encourages you to keep people watching as long as possible. My videos are more about showcasing what In have made and published, so I am not trying to sell anything or teach anything.
Adafruit easily. Their products just seem so much better "polished." Something as simple as having mounting holes can sometimes make me choose them over anyone else. That and I know I can buy something and immediately find all the info I need to get it running in less than an hour: my time is valuable.
But I have to take my hat off to both companies. It's not easy making money building hardware for the hobbyist market. I'd be interested in who else is buying their products.
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Care to share your Youtube page links? I always enjoy following people and watching them do things I am interested in when I have time to kill…
OK
@Mike73Cook
and
@mikespibakery9067
and this one before I filled up the free space allowance with 67 videos:-
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Maybe it's your hearing.
I've bought from Sparkfun since their beginning and while they have improved many of their early products were not quite "finished" engineering wise.
Adafruit seem to produce a more consistently engineered product. I purchased an e-paper display from them and it arrived as just an empty box. It had been opened as was evidenced by the cut tamper seal and Adafruit refused to replace it because it was not one of their products and forced me to return it to its UK supplier who replaced it immediately, no questions asked. For that reason, whenever I'm inclined to buy an Adafrut product, I get it from Mouser or DigiKey as it's the same price and sometimes better stocked and those companies stand behind the things they sell.
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No, had it tested only two weeks ago. (true).