Adafruit Feather ESP32-S3 — which SKU to buy: 5323 vs 5477 vs 5885
One PCB, three listings: 5323 is 8 MB flash without PSRAM, 5477 trades down to 4 MB flash but adds 2 MB PSRAM, 5885 is 8 MB flash without PSRAM plus a w.FL connector for an external antenna. Same pinout. How to choose. (Prices are not reproduced here — they drift; check the Adafruit product pages for 5323/5477/5885.)
Related products: Adafruit Feather ESP32-S3 · ESP32-S3
Question this page answers: "Adafruit sells three Feather ESP32-S3 boards — 5323, 5477 and 5885. Which one should I buy?"
They are three SKUs of one board: one PCB, one schematic, one pinout (per the Adafruit pinouts page; buy links: 5323 / 5477 / 5885). The only differences are the flash/PSRAM fit inside the ESP32-S3 mini-module and, on one SKU, an antenna connector.
| SKU | Flash | PSRAM | Antenna | Pick it when |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5323 | 8 MB | none | on-module PCB antenna | the default choice — biggest flash, nothing extra to decide |
| 5477 | 4 MB | 2 MB | on-module PCB antenna | your code needs RAM: framebuffers, audio buffers, camera pipelines, large ML tensors |
| 5885 | 8 MB | none | w.FL connector (external antenna required) | the board lives inside a metal case or far from the router, and you want a proper antenna |
The trade is explicit: only 5477 has PSRAM, and it pays for it with half the flash (4 MB instead of 8 MB). *No SKU in this trio offers 8 MB flash and* PSRAM together** — if a project needs that combination, none of 5323/5477/5885 is the answer, and neither is an N4R2 board like the SparkFun Thing Plus ESP32-S3: N4R2 is the same 4 MB + 2 MB trade as 5477 on a different PCB, not an upgrade to 8 MB. An SD or SPI-flash card adds storage on any SKU, but external storage is not on-chip flash and cannot back PSRAM-style memory buffers.
Everything else is identical across the three: the 28-position Feather header (JP1: 16 holes from TXD0/GPIO43 at pin 1 up to RESET at pin 16; JP3: 12 holes from VBAT at pin 1 up to SDA at pin 12 — per the board netlist), a NeoPixel on GPIO33 with its power gated by GPIO21, I2C on GPIO3/GPIO4 with a STEMMA QT connector whose power you can cut through GPIO7, battery pads with a MAX17048 fuel gauge, and native USB-C.
Two selection rules of thumb:
- You cannot add PSRAM later, and external storage is not a substitute. PSRAM is soldered in the module; if your firmware's memory plan assumes it, only 5477 works. SD or SPI flash can offload storage on any SKU — it never adds executable flash or PSRAM-class memory.
- 5885 ships without a usable on-board antenna. The w.FL connector is not an extra — it replaces the PCB antenna, so Wi-Fi/BLE range is nil until you attach a w.FL antenna. USB, flashing and all wired functions work fine without one; it is the radio that needs the antenna. Buy 5885 together with a w.FL antenna (or when you already have one).
Full pin map and per-field sources: Feather ESP32-S3; chip capabilities: ESP32-S3.