Yeap. My first attempts to move away from Arduino were an absolute nightmare, even though I treated it as a development board and had ditched the Arduino librar

Yeap. My first attempts to move away from Arduino were an absolute nightmare, even though I treated it as a development board and had ditched the Arduino libraries. There was too much inconsistent information from the community about third-party STM32 boards. ESP32 boards were okay given my skill level, but I certainly wouldn't recommend them for novices. The relatively recent Pi Pico was a refreshing change due to the consistent documentation, but it is something where you have to be willing to sit down and read the documentation. And that is only considering programming the things, you still have to build something around it. I'm sure there are good alternative to the Arudino out there. Arduino certainly wasn't the first to market with beginner friendly development boards and the popularity of Arudino only attracted more companies to the market. Unfortunately, it would be difficult to figure out who to go with since there is so much meaningless noise out there.