2026-09-03

Raspberry Pi quietly introduced a 'Special Value' edition of the Pi 4 at a reduced price — and it's already gone. Jeff Geerling covered the story, noting just how short-lived the offering was.

What happened

With the Pi 5 now well established, Raspberry Pi apparently moved to clear remaining Pi 4 stock at a lower price point. The 'Special Value' branding suggested a straightforward discount on an older-but-still-capable board. The problem? Demand massively outstripped supply and the discounted units vanished almost immediately.

Why homelabbers should care

The Pi 4 remains a perfectly solid board for lightweight homelab duties — Pi-hole, Home Assistant, small Docker hosts, network monitoring. At a discount it would have been a genuine bargain for a secondary node or a dedicated single-task box. The speed at which it sold out tells you two things: the Pi 4 still has real demand, and cheap SBC compute is never hanging around for long.

Honest take

If you missed it, don't lose sleep. The Pi 4 at full price isn't bad value, but at this point a Pi 5 is the smarter buy for most new projects — more headroom, better I/O, and likely a longer useful life in your rack. The 'Special Value' was a nice-to-have, not a must-have.

If you're still running Pi 4 boards (plenty of us are), they'll keep doing their job for years yet. No need to panic-buy replacements.

What to do

If you're picking up a Pi for a new homelab project, grab a Raspberry Pi 5 and don't look back. Already running headless Pis? Our MS2131 HDMI Capture Card – 1080p Video & Audio for Headless Servers is handy for those moments you need to troubleshoot without dragging out a monitor. And a 240W USB-C Fast-Charging & Data Cable – Braided, LED Indicator keeps your USB-C powered boards tidy.