I wonder if there are any alternatives to BetaFlight. If there are any alternatives, what are their advantages and disadvantages?
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3$\begingroup$ I'm voting to close this question as too broad, as it doesn't have objective criteria, based on which answers should be rated. Instead it asks for a broad list of "advantages and disadvantages". See stackoverflow.blog/2011/08/16/gorilla-vs-shark $\endgroup$– User that hates AICommented Apr 14, 2020 at 20:06
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$\begingroup$ I don't quite agree with the comment. The question is simple and it's just as easy to rate the answers as for any other question. $\endgroup$– Nike DattaniCommented Apr 14, 2020 at 20:15
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4$\begingroup$ What criteria would you use to rate the answers? It seems this is a list-type question to me, asking people to list all possible alternatives and including their advantages and disadvantages. What are people voting for? The number of alternatives mentioned? The numbers of advantages/disadvantages listed? I agree with MEE, a better question would ask for an alternative, and name some disadvantages of BetaFlight that you'd like the alternative to solve, or some advantages you're looking for. $\endgroup$– TinkeringbellCommented Apr 14, 2020 at 20:21
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2$\begingroup$ How do you know? I don't think we've talked much about my criteria for ordering answers to questions yet. That aside, I do have criteria for what makes a good answer and a bad one, and in this case, I can't see anything that would make 1 type of answer to this question better than another, except maybe a lack of listing advantages and disadvantages. As we're discussing on meta, I think a good recommendations question (which asking for alternatives fits under) meets some quality guidelines. $\endgroup$– TinkeringbellCommented Apr 14, 2020 at 20:34
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1$\begingroup$ Here is another good, related MSE post about 'shopping list questions', listing some of the problems I see with this post too (open ended, risk of becoming outdated very quickly). It links to this blog post which is worth a read too. Basically, I think the question should either meet some basic guidelines for a recommendations question, or should be closed as too broad/opinion based. $\endgroup$– TinkeringbellCommented Apr 14, 2020 at 20:36
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2 Answers
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Among open-source options, Emuflight, INav & Ardupilot (different focus) Butterflight (mostly defunct), Raceflight (mostly defunct). There is still Cleanflight and Baseflight, which are the shared lineage for Betaflight, Emu, Butr, and others. Of these, EMU has an EKF (Enhanced Kalman Filter) variant of filtering, and also in older releases captures a lot of the 'goodness' of BF 3.5.7 filtering with a few PID adjustments that some pilots prefer for feel - and is now where Project Mockingbird does custom whoop tune development.
FlightOne, especially FalcoX adds a lot of ease of use for OSD configuration, and on most setups the stock tune out of the box or selected from a short list of defaults will fly really well. Require FL1 FC or FL1 license on specific F411 targets (at the moment) - FL1 makes great ESCs if you can get ahold of them.
KISS is also a closed source, with mostly one source of ongoing development, but provides impressively good flight performance as well. Needs KISS FC to work, I do recommend other ESCs.
For closed source options, the biggest downside is cost and need to re-learn some of the approaches if you're familiar with Betaflight already.
The biggest feature-set of Betaflight lies in the RPM Filtering capability (which in my experience can make cheap builds outperform most people's expensive stuff), although for many users without a background that makes the tuning process very accessible, the 3.5.7 builds of BetaFlight will fly better in stock or near-stock tunes.
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Yes, there are. For freestyle and racing, there are EMU Flight, FlightOne, and Kiss which are the most popular. If you fly using GPS you may want to consider INAV.
Here I will discuss the advantages/disadvantages of each when compared to Betaflight:
KISS: Advantages - Very simple interface without a lot of confusing options. The defaults are very good for 5-inch quads. The disadvantage of Kiss is that it has a smaller user base than Betaflight and it may be harder to find help from the community when you need assistance. Kiss hardware, flight controllers and ESCs often times cost more than their betaflight and FlightOne counterparts.
FlightOne: Advantages - The new FalcoX firmware is very easy to set up on your quad using the graphical OSD wizard. No computer necessary. The software has many presets from which you can choose to find which may work best for your quad. The disadvantage of FlightOne is hardware availability. Often times their FCs and ESCs aren't available. If you experience failure you may wait a while for a spare ESC or FC.
EMU Flight: Advantages - EMU Flight is a fork (a derivative of BetaFlight). Their goal is to focus on flight handling as opposed to Betaflight which appears to focus on features. EMU Flight is very good for those who fly whoops or sub 4 inch (prop diameter) quads. They use innovative filtering which is beyond the scope of this discussion. Disadvantages, EMU Flight is one of the smaller communities so getting help may take a while.
INAV: Unfortunately I do not have any experience with INAV.
