What are the alternatives to the Raspberry PI?

Question

Microcontrollers

I decided to buy myself a Raspberry PI or a similar board for flashing lights and for something else later. It is the interface that is not really needed; Is there something similar to be able to control analog things using code, for example, for the same smart home?

Answer 1

It all depends on how you are going to flash the lights.
Here's a cheap option . Schematics, firmware, etc. are on the site. Will result in $25. This is the
cheapest option . It will cost around $10. If you have any AVR controller, you can flash the lights directly from the computer.

Answer 2

If for flashing light bulbs, then Arduino or some cheap Chinese copy of it is more suitable.
And if we talk about Raspberry PI analogues, that is, cubieboard cubieboard.org It has a SATA interface, so I chose it instead of Raspberry PI.